![]() ![]() As I am also a fan of the eclectic, the random and even the downright eccentric, this mix of anecdote, history, folklore and poetry is my perfect start to the day. So when I found her New Book of Days at Barter Books in Alnwick, I pounced, and each day now begins with a moment or two reading her entry for that date. I am, as you may know if you have diligently read previous weeks’ episodes, a fan of Eleanor Farjeon. ![]() ![]() Don’t they? A mini-inventory of the current NorthernReader volumes seems in order. Real readers – and by that I am not trying to set up some sort of competition (with smug-face medals for the winners, I might add), but celebrate the life-enhancing thought-provoking and spirits-uplifting power of books – real readers tend to have more than one book at a time on the go. It seems that in the struggle for prestige and position, some of the gentler pleasures of reading have been rather lost. ‘Well, a lot of them still cry,’ she replied. So now I ask them what they’ve ever read that isn’t an A level text.’ ‘Does that work?’ I asked. ![]() ‘I’ve stopped asking them what they’re reading at the moment that isn’t an A level text,’ she told me ‘because they generally cry. A friend of mine was, in her time, Admissions Tutor for English at one of the Oxford colleges. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |