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mg_in_md_'s review against another edition
3.0
I selected this as my pick for the 2018 BookRiot Read Harder Challenge prompt "an essay anthology." Most of the contributors were from the UK, so some of the favorite books cited were titles I was not familiar with, like [b:Swallows and Amazons|125190|Swallows and Amazons (Swallows and Amazons, #1)|Arthur Ransome|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1277148503s/125190.jpg|231599]. I found the essays and approaches to answering the questions interesting overall. And, I liked the premise behind the anthology, as well.
sjgrodsky's review against another edition
3.0
I wrote a review! And Goodreads lost it! No more reviews! Bad Goodreads!
toniclark's review against another edition
3.0
I love books (and podcasts) about readers and reading. I can usually listen to people talk endlessly about their reading lives. But this book didn’t engage me as most such books do. Perhaps a combination of its being a bit dated and very Brit-centric. I’ve never heard of some of the books these people read as children. The same books are mentioned over and over. Perhaps that’s a testament to their greatness. But I did wonder at times whether people were simply listing the books they thought they should list, rather than ones they really loved.
I’m amazed that so many writers mention the Bible as one of their favorite books. Have they actually read it? Or does it seem the right thing to say?
There were a few pieces I enjoyed. And I appreciated the fact that so many of the writers had in common the childhood experience of reading being “a pleasure so intense it was practically a vice,” as Gita Mehta put it.
One thing that this collection brought home, though not for the first time, is how many of the Great Books I’ve never read — from both children’s and adult literature. I sometimes wonder how it’s possible that I’ve been a life-long reader, from childhood on, majored in English, got a masters degree in English, and yet have never read Little Women or The Hobbit or the Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Flies or Animal Farm. Not even Winnie the Pooh. . . . I have missed most of Dickens, Hardy, Trollope, C.S. Lewis, Cather, Eliot, Proust, Wolfe, Waugh, and Wodehouse. . . . The list seems to be infinite and sad.
But I think Hermione Lee is probably right on in her opinion of the 10 best books in the language (of English, that is): Jane Austen, Persuasion; Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit; George Eliot, Middlemarch; Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady; Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse; Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart; Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome; F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Willa Cather, The Professor’s House; James Joyce, Ulysses. (With the possible exception of Ulysses. I was confronted with it twice in college and faked having read it — and got away with it — both times.)
And I agree with Paul Sayer that “Children make the best readers. As adults, most of them will lose their willingness to be entertained or informed by books of any kind.” True of Americans, at any rate, though he was probably talking about Brits.
One of my favorite bits in the entire book comes from Wendy Cope (who, as a child, liked stories about horses):
“But I was discriminating. At the age of nine or ten I abandoned a book after a few chapters because the heroine got keen on a boy and let him kiss her. Boring. Horse stories with romantic interest were unacceptable. Horse stories – or any other kind of stories – with a Christian message were even worse. Since my mother is of the evangelical persuasion, I was sometimes given these. They infuriated me. Religious instruction disguised as a pony book was a cheat and I wasn’t having any of it.”
I’m amazed that so many writers mention the Bible as one of their favorite books. Have they actually read it? Or does it seem the right thing to say?
There were a few pieces I enjoyed. And I appreciated the fact that so many of the writers had in common the childhood experience of reading being “a pleasure so intense it was practically a vice,” as Gita Mehta put it.
One thing that this collection brought home, though not for the first time, is how many of the Great Books I’ve never read — from both children’s and adult literature. I sometimes wonder how it’s possible that I’ve been a life-long reader, from childhood on, majored in English, got a masters degree in English, and yet have never read Little Women or The Hobbit or the Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Flies or Animal Farm. Not even Winnie the Pooh. . . . I have missed most of Dickens, Hardy, Trollope, C.S. Lewis, Cather, Eliot, Proust, Wolfe, Waugh, and Wodehouse. . . . The list seems to be infinite and sad.
But I think Hermione Lee is probably right on in her opinion of the 10 best books in the language (of English, that is): Jane Austen, Persuasion; Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit; George Eliot, Middlemarch; Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady; Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse; Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart; Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome; F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Willa Cather, The Professor’s House; James Joyce, Ulysses. (With the possible exception of Ulysses. I was confronted with it twice in college and faked having read it — and got away with it — both times.)
And I agree with Paul Sayer that “Children make the best readers. As adults, most of them will lose their willingness to be entertained or informed by books of any kind.” True of Americans, at any rate, though he was probably talking about Brits.
One of my favorite bits in the entire book comes from Wendy Cope (who, as a child, liked stories about horses):
“But I was discriminating. At the age of nine or ten I abandoned a book after a few chapters because the heroine got keen on a boy and let him kiss her. Boring. Horse stories with romantic interest were unacceptable. Horse stories – or any other kind of stories – with a Christian message were even worse. Since my mother is of the evangelical persuasion, I was sometimes given these. They infuriated me. Religious instruction disguised as a pony book was a cheat and I wasn’t having any of it.”
sadiereadsagain's review
3.0
I love books about books, about reading, about anything to do with this amazing hobby/way of life. And authors loving on books is wonderful, to see the development of their passion and craft. So I was excited for this one.
Well... This collection of writers discussing their favourite books and how they fell in love with reading missed the mark for me. Many were writers I didn't know anything about, and the majority were older than my parents - I hadn't realised that this is a reissue of an older collection, with just a couple of new entries tagged on the end. But I don't need to know a person to enjoy their bookish memories. Except, they all seemed to have very similar ones - the same authors and books are mentioned time and time again. Obviously people's experiences and memories can't really be dictated by the editor, but it all comes down to a lack of diversity in the contributors. I don't doubt if the editor had asked people from different class or racial backgrounds there would have been a much richer pool of experiences to fill this book with.
Some of the entries are very good, either funny or poignant. But a majority came across as pompous and elitist, like a pissing contest of who was the most widely read at the youngest age. I do accept that, due to the age of most contributors, literature for younger generations wasn't anything like it is today. But I'm sure there were more than just five books available, even in the early 1900's.
I honestly found this a pretty dull collection.
Well... This collection of writers discussing their favourite books and how they fell in love with reading missed the mark for me. Many were writers I didn't know anything about, and the majority were older than my parents - I hadn't realised that this is a reissue of an older collection, with just a couple of new entries tagged on the end. But I don't need to know a person to enjoy their bookish memories. Except, they all seemed to have very similar ones - the same authors and books are mentioned time and time again. Obviously people's experiences and memories can't really be dictated by the editor, but it all comes down to a lack of diversity in the contributors. I don't doubt if the editor had asked people from different class or racial backgrounds there would have been a much richer pool of experiences to fill this book with.
Some of the entries are very good, either funny or poignant. But a majority came across as pompous and elitist, like a pissing contest of who was the most widely read at the youngest age. I do accept that, due to the age of most contributors, literature for younger generations wasn't anything like it is today. But I'm sure there were more than just five books available, even in the early 1900's.
I honestly found this a pretty dull collection.
bak8382's review against another edition
3.0
I picked this off the new books shelf at the library. This is an updated edition of this title. Each author takes 3-4 pages to explain their reading life and generally include a list of favorites at the end. The end notes give a short bio of each author. I wasn't familiar with most of the authors, but really I was looking to see how well their reading lives coincided with mine. Mostly it was in my love of Jane Austen that I was rewarded.
judyward's review against another edition
3.0
Forty authors explain what first hooked them on books and what has sustained them in a life of reading.
stephanielynnrp's review
3.0
But 17 stars for Jeannette Winterson's contribution, along with Margaret Atwood's... A few others were excellent too, but some of the older entries came off a bit elitist, even for my taste.