Author: Susan Hill
Publisher: Profile publisher (gb)
Pages: 236
Price: Rs 750
Genre: Non-fiction/ on reading
Rating:4 out of 5
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This is just not another list of books she has loved ,liked and disliked but more of a memoir of years that she has been through with books...Memories and life attached to the same people , place are all part of it..All this begins when Susan goes searching for a particular book which she fails to find , in the process she discovers many books she hasn't read or re-read as she had planned to , this makes her to spend a year not buying any new books rather spend her time reading all that she wanted to from her shelf..
Love for reading reflects through every expressions of her..Husband and wife sleeping in different rooms just to be wrapped around the books they wanted to read only supports that thought...Her interest are varied and she has tried to cover vast collection, though her dislike for Austen might put off many, she discusses till Rowling and Harry Potter with much ease like she recounts reading classic..Reading this made me think about the books that I loved reading and that was were things..From poets to short stories her interest in books somehow matches mine still there were points were I just couldn't connect with her and that is when I had to remind myself that the books is her personal ramblings and like me..But we all love books except for few all of us mortal might go through this phase, then how does this particular book set apart ..This is not the kind of book that explores her life and her reading life completely though it does in a larger way nor it takes us into her world of books but it does all of these in a different note...There are also glimpses of her childhood and teenage reading and the authors who inspired her....I didn't know why the author with so much of freedom of choice didn't explore varied cross continent literature, her list seemed quite partial to British..Though she had a section dedicated to woman authors that seemed written in a hurry rather being savoured
Her rendezvous with great such as Benjamin Britten, T.S Eliot, E.M Foster, Iris Mudroch, and so on are spread across the book...Still somehow I felt that the emotional connection that she could have made with the reader wasn't that great...May be for the reason it went quite superficially..I loved her attitude towards books though her views may not go by mass...At the end of the book there is a list of 40 books she would happily die with..And why I loved book is that all through the line it made me probe into my fray of reading books and the way I see books and their contents..It also made be feel why books are one of the best friends a person can ever have and the habit of reading a real blessing in itself...Personally I have made many a lists that I have been able to fulfill and many a times failing pathetically...Still I have never fell out of love with my books its a kind of love affair for eternity that I would treasure upon for many years to be...
As someone who is obvious bookish this sounds fantastic to me. I would agree that no two people could be in one hundred percent agreement on all books.
ReplyDeleteAs for lists, foe me they are impossible. I just cannot read that fast!
Great commentary as usual VB!