I went to five different primary schools and I imagine that this would not have helped my reading abilities.  My parents were not great readers when I was young, though they both enjoyed reading later on in their lives.  There would not have been money, at this time of my life, for books.  My father, an unskilled labourer, was busy trying to earn enough money to keep a wife, and three children (I am the middle of three; a brother three years older and a sister three years younger).  My mother was disabled and unable to work to help with the finance and also, by the birth of her third child, unable to leave the house without the help of my father and so the library was an unknown institution at that time.  (Perhaps more on this in the creative writing/autobiography email group.)  Therefore I was not exposed to books at a young age.  I do remember getting a set of books for Christmas when I was around ten years old; Heidi, Anne of Green Gables and Black Beauty.  I never read these books.  I remember flicking through them and being daunted by all of the text.

My son is dyslexic and recently, one of my granddaughters, has been told she is dyslexic and that it relates to a memory problem.  When I was told this, I started to wonder about myself in this respect.  I have been aware, probably from the third part of my life, that my memory is different to a lot of other people.  It is no joke that I read an article once in which it described my memory but I can't remember what the condition was called!

My dyslexic granddaughter (aged 8 years) was recently telling me of an emotional experience that she recalled which she said was a year ago.  She then followed this up with a remark asking why couldn't she remember her school work in the same way?  I felt, even more strongly then, that perhaps we have been made the same way.  My easy memories are all emotional.  I have always assumed that everyone is like this but am now not so sure about this.

I read recently a comment by a neuroscientist, that emotions most likely came about to cause action and this seems to make sense to me.  Nick Howland says that he doesn't enjoy reading novels because of the emotional turmoil it can cause him.  If you are someone who really likes to do things, as Nick seems to be (Nick I love what you have been getting up to during the shutdown – so productive!), and you have a strong emotional response to it but can't then do anything to help, could that then be so distressing that you have to pull-back from those encounters?

My father probably always had more of a disposition to read than my mother. From around the age of 9-10 years, when things started to improve financially for my parents, (although this was a roller coaster throughout my parent's lives) my father did buy some books.  I think they were a mixture of detective and western stories with a few non-fiction books as well.  I think I first reached for one of these book (probably a detective story) when I was around 15 years of age and this was just to pass the time, while sunbathing, as I was more keen on getting a tan than an education at that age.  I will say that we lived in a little village and life was very dull.

I married, for the first time, when I was almost 21 years old.  We decided not to have a TV and for seven years I was a regular at the library but my reading material was very basic; I think I read all of Georgette Heyer's books which I found very funny.  I must have had a wish to read better but, with no-one to push me along or advise me, I was left to my own devices.  I joined the Heron book club and bought and read all of their series by Dennis Wheatley.  This came as I had a little interest in the occult, and he put parts of that in his books, but I found it interesting reading about types of people and ways of life that were utterly alien to me; that is the lives of right-wing toffs!  I should say here that my parents, especially my father, were socialists and very much drawn to the left.  I can't say that any of these books made a great impression on me but I found them diverting.  I started to read the Heron book club's range of classics but did not finish buying and reading them, probably due to financial reasons.  Out of all of the ones that I read, and still have, the one I enjoyed the most and can remember is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I found this book highly entertaining.  It made me laugh out loud and I thought that she had a great understanding of human character.  I think I recognised many of the personality traits of the characters from people that I knew.  I wonder now whether I remembered this book because it engaged me in an emotional way that many books read previously had not.  I remember getting to the end of Woman in White by Wilkie Collins and thinking it was not a good book.  I obviously did not understand it and a recent adaptation on the TV has now explained it to me!

I read Shogun by James Clavell when I was about 24 years old, and enjoyed the story overall, but found some of the story horrific.  Just writing about it now, brings a particular scene to my mind that is awful.  I try not to think about this book but it obviously came into my head in writing this.  Even if this scene did not actually happen, like so much fiction, you know that things written about did happen to someone somewhere and it can be very upsetting.  I have read quite a lot of novels, which like Wendy Norton, is what I get most enjoyment from.  I couldn't say what most of them are but might recall some of them if prompted in the right way.  They are quite varied: Rebus series by Ian Rankin , Margaret Atwood, Sarah Waters, Sebastian Faulks and a favourite, Jodi Picoult; I especially enjoyed her Small Great Things .   The thing I love about Jodi Picoult is that she is able to see things from so many points of view and she shows you, or me I should say, that things are never black and white but nearly always grey.

Over the last few years I have read a few more non-fiction books.  Like Wendy Norton and Susan McMillan, Peter and I are members of Don Jameson's Philosophy U3A group and I have enjoyed all of the books that we have covered, although some more than others.  One book that we read in Don's group, which I had already read and loved, was Rethink; The Surprising History of New Ideas by Steven Poole. Other books I have read at home are Pathways To Bliss by Joseph Campbell, Wilding by Isabella Tree and The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli.   I can't remember why (now there's a surprise) but I became very interested in the idea of quantum physics and Peter bought me the The Quantum World Vol Three/Issue Three from New Scientist The Collection.   It took me a while to read it as, not having any understanding of physics, (although some might say that would be an advantage) I had to read and re-read it.  I found it hugely exciting and often it would keep me awake at night as it seemed to tie up with other things in my mind and it made sense of them. 

I believe that when I read things, and take them in, even though I may not be able to recall or articulate them later, they are still making connections in other parts of my brain and have an influence on how I think.  David Simkin mentioned the book We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver which I have read and found emotional and could recall a sense of it.  I think I will read The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell as it has been mentioned a few times and has caught my attention.

It never fails to surprise me how, the more time I have, the less I get done.  Parkinson's Law, which I read (I think) in the late 1950s, states that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.  This is my rather feeble excuse for only just catching up with the reading experiences of the group let alone contribute by writing something.

Unlike many of the group, I read much more fiction than non-fiction.  At their best, novels draw you into a world which may be very similar to your own environment or totally different – a different class, a different country, a different age and so on. They give a vicarious view of what life is or was outside the bubble we happen to inhabit. They also give you a, sometimes penetrating, insight into character and psychology

I think my childhood was quite typical for middle class children born in the 1940s.  My parents were readers although we didn't have too many books in the house and, as there wasn't a public library in our large village in Middlesex, they used the W.H.Smith lending library, probably getting through a couple of books each a week.  My earliest reading memories were of the standard books for children. I read all of Enid Blyton but actually preferred the Just William series.  As I got older, I started to read adult books, many of them about WW2. I preferred true accounts to novels and the ones I remember most vividly are those that were made into films – The Colditz Story by Pat Reid, Reach for the Sky about Douglas Bader, the RAF pilot who lost both his legs, prisoner of war stories such as The Great Escape and The Wooden Horse and a novel The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Montserrat.  I also remember reading The Ascent of Everest in a single day.

In my late teens and early twenties, I was reading mainly fiction and I started to read many of the Penguin Modern Classics, for example, among many – Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night & This Side of Paradise,  Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Hemingway, most of George Orwell. The list seems endless. I was too young to appreciate some of them properly. I re-read some of them forty or more years later and got a very different perspective of many of them

For most of my adult life I didn't read as much, preoccupied with work and children, perhaps half an hour a day and again mainly fiction, but when I retired, semi-forcibly at the age of 51, I had a lot of time on my hands and enrolled with the Open University.  I had left school at 17 after ‘A' levels and didn't go to university. Probably, for the first time in my life, certainly since before ‘O' levels, I enjoyed studying - with the OU.  I was torn between Arts and Science but eventually chose Humanities and started with The Arts Foundation Course where the literature module introduced me to Dickens's Hard Times.  Later I took an introductory course in literature and in my final year of my Humanities degree, I took Literature in the Modern World.  Most of the rest of my degree was taken up with History courses.  Wanting to study more, I started a Science degree but after the Science Foundation Course and An Introduction to Psychology, I was diverted by some new courses notably The 19th Century Novel and Shakespeare: Text and Performance.  I thoroughly enjoyed the literature and, although I found some of the literary theory hard to absorb if not impenetrable, I managed to bluff my way through that part of it.  I graduated again in 2005 and am eternally grateful to the OU for the education I received. It broadened my horizons hugely.

In one of the OU courses, I studied Jane Eyre. It's always hard to adapt a great novel and if you strip out all the interior monologue from Jane Eyre, you're arguably left with a Victorian potboiler which may be a good tale but doesn't reflect all the undercurrents and themes of the novel that make the novel great, quite apart from when the adaptations leave out chunks of the novel. So we decided to give last night's performance a miss.

This has made me think about university education.  I'm no expert, unlike several in the group, but I find it difficult to reconcile training vs education as the prime purpose of university.  My experience with the OU leads me to value the education given by an Arts degree, while at the same time the more obvious purpose of university is to train for example doctors and engineers.  When I left school many years ago, one could join most professions with good ‘O' levels and be trained on the job.  University was for an elite.  Now it seems, with much more democratic access, everyone needs to get a degree to start any career or, often very unfairly, be considered thick. I don't know the numbers but I assume that many more graduates are now doing Masters or PhDs to prove themselves a cut above the rest.

Lastly, John Simkin, you are obviously right about more women reading novels than men. I know that, as a male, I'm in the minority. I joined a U3A book club to find that, to no great surprise, I was the only male; in fact I was told that at the time I was the only male in any of the four U3A book clubs. The novels that men and women read are, as a broad generality, often very different. Furthermore, if you strip out the readers of crime and thrillers on one side and chick-lit and romance on the other you still have a large majority of female novel readers.  Is this because women are interested in character and psychology than plot?  Is it the same psychology as at work in female friendships. Is this then a social and cultural construct or something inherent in the female psyche?

As early as I can remember, I have delighted in books. Both my parents were readers, and there were always books about the house. When preparing for family holidays, we collected piles of reading material to take and enjoy. I worked my way through much of the local children's library, borrowing my parents' library cards. Captain W.E. Johns (Biggles et al) was a favourite, and lots of action stories. We had no TV until I was into my teens, and then BBC only. I had a good set of I-Spy books, and my Observer's Book of Railway Locomotives of Britain (1957) is marked with engines I'd seen including Mallard the world speed record holder which I collected at King's Cross.

Aged about five years, I remember visiting my Nana's (mother's mother's) house in Blackheath, London, and looking through her enormous pile of paperbacks. From the covers you could see she loved Westerns. I assume that Zane Grey novels and Shane would have been there.

My father intensely disliked Beatrix Potter stories and Peter Rabbit was banned from the house. Oddly, my grandmother (his mother) had a set of all the Beatrix Potter children's books (perhaps these had sensitized my father?) and when we visited her I remember the illicit joy of reading Peter Rabbit: banning something does provoke interest! My grandmother seemed to me very proper and rather austere. She had a lot of books, and one of her favourites was John Betjeman. I don't know what Grandmother would have thought about his famous quote in 1983. On being asked about his greatest regret he replied: "I haven't had enough sex".

For some reason (good taste?) I never liked Enid Blyton, and I loved the wonderful spoof on Channel 4 TV in 1982: Five Go Mad in Dorset. [Financial Times review: "deliciously accurate parody of Enid Blyton's mind-numbingly repetitive adventure stories"] Having avoided the Famous Five, I moved on through all the Sherlock Holmes stories, and into Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley and science fiction - Kurt Vonnegut, Asimov, John Wyndham. Apocalyptic stories which are suddenly topical.

Summer holidays were the opportunity for a book reading project. I read all three Lord of the Rings, War and Peace, and Solzhenitsyn and other cheerful Russian doorstops. This does bring to mind Vasily Grossman's extraordinary Life and Fate (mentioned by John Manning) which was produced as a powerful BBC radio series which I heard on its first broadcast in 2011.

I've not talked about school. Being in the science stream (how ridiculous to divide people so young into arts and science) I didn't do much in the humanities, but we did have a trendy English teacher, known by his first name Tony. Through Tony we developed a liking for Robert Frost, G.B. Shaw, and Macbeth (bowdlerized and abbreviated; no Porter!) In the class play reading, I enjoyed being Lady Macbeth.

At University (studying chemistry and then biochemical engineering) I made a pretentious perambulation through Proust, Camus and into existentialism. However, I don't remember much of the content. A more memorable and worthy text was the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (also mentioned by David Simkin), sadly published after the author's death. This book had the largest effect of any on me. I had often wondered why poor people voted for toffs, and Tressell in his pre first world war novel of decorators in an Hastings-like town, addresses exactly this issue (a very topical point, as recently and depressingly, the Labour heartlands voted for Rees Mogg et al). I saw Howard Brenton's excellent play of the book at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2010.

With three children growing up, my reading time became much curtailed. All three children have I think acquired their love of reading from my late wife Christine and myself. My eldest son Will at junior school was told by his class teacher "I never thought I'd say this to a boy, but I think that you read too much."! At home here I have a good selection of children's books for my visiting grandchildren. Of course at the moment these are gathering dust.

Alongside all the fiction, I've always read a lot of science books and as a lad I spent hours perusing the Meccano catalogue and instruction books. I then moved on to Practical Wireless, building my own radio set. Later I would browse the Haynes Manuals (on car maintenance - Nick Howland mentioned his love of Motorcycle Mechanics). The Lord Richard Dawkins is a hero of mine, and I've read most of his oeuvre. His writing style is clear and excellent, pulling no punches. There are few things more gripping than a good science book, and I have quite a collection. More recently I've moved on to tracts on sustainability: the modern classic Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air by David J.C. MacKay, and recently The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells.

A few weeks ago, Helen helped me sort out some of my books stored in boxes. This reminded me how well-read I once tried to be (and modest with it). No space to discuss a life time of reading, just to mention some of the names in the box: Doris Lessing, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Edna O'Brien, Hermann Hesse, VS Naipaul, John Prebble, RD Laing, JB Priestley, EM Forster, Mervyn Peake, Edgar Allen Poe, Daphne du Maurier, Anthony Powell. And for fun: JP Donleavy, Stella Gibbons, Tom Sharpe. A special mention to: Marcus du Sautoy, Bill Bryson, Richard Dawkins, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, John le Carré and George Orwell.

My interest in reading novels has been rekindled by Helen Logan, sparked by her impressive literary knowledge and having a quotation for every situation. Ian McEwan's Machines Like Me from Helen was a good read. I plan to read the latest Hilary Mantel, and on the bookshelf is Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch intimidating me with its 771 pages. That’s what I call a project!

A "love of reading" is something I've never really thought about too much. I suppose this is because reading is something I've always done. It's such an integral part of my life that I've never stopped to consider it in any depth. I always have a book "on the go" (usually a novel, but I read a fair amount of non fiction too) and I never go to sleep without reading at least a few pages of my current book.

As a family, we didn't have a TV until I was about 12 and my Mum was an avid reader (my Dad read too), so reading was just a natural thing to do at home. I can't remember too much about my early reading habits but I had quite a charismatic teacher at junior school. (Mrs Gregg: I even remember her name.) Reading was a big thing for her and we children all took great delight in reading the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and following the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia. Her other "big thing" was folk dancing and, if you were really lucky, Morris Dancing, but - although I enjoyed it at the time - this didn't have the same lasting effect on me.

I remember reading the "Jennings"and the "Just William" stories and Nevil Shute was involved somewhere at a later stage. However, although we visited the local library every week, I can't remember any other significant influences on my early reading habits.

Suffice it to say that, for me, reading has been the habit of a lifetime. Although, in her later days, my Mum couldn't carry a plot in her head, she insisted on having a book to hand until the end. And I'll probably be the same. 

Everyone who comes to your house John can't fail to be impressed by your book collection. I'm the same, I have a large collection. The difference is that a significant number of the books in my collection remain unread. I can't resist a good book, even if there's no immediate chance I'll actually be able to read it. The intention is there but there are only so many hours in the day. One of the plus points about the current lockdown is that it affords an opportunity to catch up on some of the backlog. I do have a kindle but I still prefer an actual book - being able to handle it, flick through the pages and look at the cover. I rarely give books away: I'm a real hoarder.

As part of this conversation it might be useful for contributors to let people know what we are all currently reading. So here goes :

My last book was Days Without End by Sebastian Barry. A strange story about two young men living in 19th century America who earn a living by dressing up as women and selling dances with cowboys in the saloons of towns starved of female company. They then go off to fight in the Indian Wars and the Civil War and end up adopting a young Native America girl. I enjoyed this book so much that I just read it for the second time. Sebastian Barry's latest novel is written from the point of view of Winona, the Indian girl.

And I am currently reading I heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt - basically the story behind the murder of Jimmy Hoffa, on which the film The Irishman was based.

I didn't really get the bug at school either but my Mum was an avid reader and I used to trot along to Hove Library with her on a Saturday and started to take some books out. None of them memorable in any way, I'm sorry to say in those early days although two do spring to mind. Milly Molly Mandy was a lovely story about a little girl, so innocent and warm, all baking and playing, and Guy The Gallump, who was a very ugly animal that no-one in the forest loved until he saved all the baby animals whilst their parents were out. I've looked for that book for 50 years but never found it. I then started to enjoy some of the books for my GCE O levels, the wonderful To Kill a Mockingbird. Unfortunately my A Level reading was somewhat dryer, Corridors of Power, which I hated, The Duchess of Amalfi and Coriolanus which were a struggle but loved Dylan Thomas's poetry and also 1984.

Since then I've been hooked on thrillers and detective stories (or holiday reads, one might say). Funnily enough someone on TV mentioned Dick Francis and he wrote some comfortable mystery stories, now I'm more into Patterson, Michael Connolly, Lee Child and many more in this genre. I love finding a new author who has written a series of books that I can follow from the first to the latest. I am now reading three women authors in this genre and their detectives, two are women and one is a man. But I have to like some of the characters in a book or I give up. Louise Penny, a Canadian author has written a lovely series of books featuring a kindly Chief Inspector Gamache who lives in a very interesting village tucked away from the world. She has some great characters in this village including an elderly lady poet who swears like a trouper. 

Reading just takes me away from the here and now and I do find that my mood, soul and language can change depending upon what I read. For instance I myself become posh whenever I read an Austin and if it is a historical book such as Pillars of The Earth, then I become so engrossed that I'm one of the tough women battling for survival.

Reading is and always has been one of my greatest pleasures, so now I am having a reading bonanza. There are 200 or so unread books in my house - many contemporary  from my publishing daughter - she offered me a TV but I said no. From a really early age I was read to fairy tales, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, and  poetry - Child's Garden of Verses, Now we are Six, Hiawatha etc.

Fortunately reading came easily to me, and I was reading independently from 5. It was good to read other people's lists - I had forgotten Milly Molly Mandy and  like others, Heidi, Little Women, etc.

Black Beauty is a book that left its imprint...I still get concerned about  animals in the service of man....but my absolute favourites were the Jennings books. I still have them all in hardback.  We didn't have any comics (neither did my children)  but  my mother took out a subscription to The Children's newspaper - but as I only read the  Jennings serial, there wasn't a lot of point....

I lived in a Midlands village, where the main industry was boot and shoe factories... my father taught 4 languages in a nearby boarding school, and read Goethe in the original...there was no public library....there was a class library  which was good  in the top year.

We moved to London when I was 13, and I did use the nearby adult public library.

I had a young enthusiastic English teacher in my grammar school, who was very keen on Jane Austen....I' ve never been that keen, although I like the films!  I read Dickens from a young age, because we stayed with my grandmother, by the sea,  and she had a set of Dickens..I had a big phase  of him, and  read some biographies.  I was given a book token from a godfather with which I bought Lady Chatterley's  Lover, when it was published by Penguin. I read most of D,H,

Lawrence, and several biographies. In the early 60s I also read Steinbeck, Laurence Durrell,  Dostoevsky, Hemingway, Pasternak, Dr Zhivago, Nabokov, Lolita, Alan Sillitoe, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Golding, Lord of the Flies, Salinger, Catcher in the Rye, Robert Graves, I Claudius. L.R.Banks, The L-shaped Room,  Virginia Wolf,  Alberto Moravia, Mervyn Peake, The Gormenghast trilogy - I ploughed through the Tolkein trilogy, but didn't like it at all. To Kill a Mocking Bird, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Day of the Jackal and books by Lynne Reid Banks, John Wyndham, Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn ended the 1970s.

In the 80s I read Brave New World, Ragged Trousered Philanthropist. John Fowles, The Magus, Tom Sharp and Alan Sillitoe. I also read Margaret Attwood's first books, but think out of a lot of hers, I am most impressed with Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood - an environmental dystopian future  - one of our most brilliant living writers...her range is wide. Pat Barker, Angela Carter, Helen Dunmore, The Seige, and Susan Hill can be impressive.

Other stand-out contemporary writers/books  are for me Peter Ackroyd, Hawksmoor. Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient, Sebastian Faulkes, Engleby, David Mitchell, Cloud  Atlas, Robert Harris, Sebastian Barry, Patrick Gale. I also read quite a few French writers - Sartre, Camus - The Plague -  John Genet, The Theif's Journal -  Simone de Beauvoir, and the Russians - War and Peace, Brothers Karamazof.

Andrew Miller writes amazingly - social history - Pure, clearing the oldest cemetery n Paris 1785.I do not like Hilary Mantel. I expect some of these ring bells for people (I also read Mein Kampf - it was requested by a reader when I was working in  Westminster Libraries - it came from Birmingham)

I have read some books straight through until the small hours - Educated by Tara Westover - was one - an uneducated girl in America , who had to work in her father's scrapyard until she managed to get out.. and gain a top education...autobiography.

 I am a slow reader, reading every word, so I want to feel whatever I read has some literary merit and  has some interesting ideas - Clockwork Orange, for instance - or can take me to another place or time,  or have an insight into how other people live,....I'm not particularly interested in detective novels...

 I have kept a record of the books I've read with title and author - no comments - since the mid 1960s....

Brought up in a family of book lovers, I have always loved reading and been very fortunate to be surrounded by books. My sister having lived in Colombia, South America for most of her life, many years ago suggested I read Louis de Bernieres and I have - all his novels. If you think ‘Captain Corelli's Mandolin' causes much emotional stirrings, Nick, don't read any of the others. They are wickedly funny but unbelievably horrendous, too.

My favourite book of all times is Mario Vargas LLosa's – Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. Bliss in its humour and confusion.

I distinctly remember when I first caught the reading bug. Like you, I didn't get this from school; in fact, school put me off reading for a long time, as I associated it with reading aloud in class (which I wasn't very good at).

When I was about 8 or 9, I started reading the first Sherlock Holmes's story A Study in Scarlet. It was during the summer holidays, it was raining and I was bored. I loved it; I loved the characters, the London setting (I lived in London at the time) and most of all, I liked trying to guess the ending. It was the first time that I became engrossed in a book and I remember skipping meals while caught up in the story. I went on to read a lot more about Holmes and Watson, Moriarty and Mycroft that summer; it seemed to fly by and I remember being miffed at having to go back to school!

Unlike you John, I wasn't lucky enough to be given free books. But I did work at ‘Foyles' bookshop in Charing Cross Road for six months when I was about 17 or 18 and they gave me a (not very generous) 20% discount on their books. I treated myself to a Penguin Classic every Friday and built up quite a collection. Long gone now though!

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone’s account of how their love of reading first started. My account is, I feel, a little different to those I’ve read so far. I am in awe of pretty much everyone I have met through John’s groups and often feel very ignorant when I hear or read their views. This feeling however has never effected my confidence in sharing my views with you all. You are all very kind and encouraging.

I started reading later than many people. To begin with it was always a struggle for me and a chore. My father was sometimes critical of how slow I was at reading but encouraged me in many other ways. I eventually did start to get some pleasure from reading things like Enid Blyton and Biggles. As a child my pleasure came from making things or taking things apart to find out how they worked. As a teenager my favourite read was the monthly magazine Motorcycle Mechanics and I still have a large number of copies of them. A bit later on I became fascinated by computers and read all I could on computer programming. I was reading mainly to acquire technical information and I rarely read novels.

For about 20 years I commuted to London everyday on the train and therefore had plenty of time to read. I got into some of the more popular authors such as Tom Sharp, Steven King, Terry Pratchett and the like. Then I read the book, which I think finished any enjoyment I’d been getting from novels. It was Captain Corelli's Mandolin. I remember weeping on the train as I was reading it. I had to finish the story because I was hoping for a happy ending but it was causing a lot of emotional pain. At the end I hated Louis de Bernières. Why would anyone make up such a story? I was cross at the way he had caused me so much pain in the name of entertainment. I’d always realised how skilful great authors were in describing situations in such colourful ways but now I’d become resentful of these skills playing with my emotions, especially when tackling tragic situations. I now can’t bear to read or watch any fictional material where the characters are facing emotional trauma. I haven’t read a novel in 10 or 15 years and I’ve not been to the cinema in nearly as long.

The book that changed my life was The Selfish Gene. The idea that the gene was focus of natural selection fascinated me and following that book I quickly read everything else Richard Dawkins had written. Then for balance I read much of The Bible. My atheist views were firmly locked in from that point.

In latter years I’ve tended to focus on books related to psychology and human nature. I wanted to find out why I was thinking the way I was. Most recently I’ve been reading books on Stoicism and I’m trying to live my life following those principles. If anyone is interested, I recommend as a good start How to Think Like a Roman Emperor by Donald Robertson.

Clearly novels bring so much enjoyment to so many people. They allow people to feel all the experiences life has to offer from the comfort of our armchairs. I feel I have probably missed out by not reading the classic novels and my vocabulary and ability to express myself has also suffered. Obviously I could start now but I seem to be just too busy with stuff!

Like many of us I cannot remember a time when I couldn’t read. When my mother died I found some ‘flash cards’ that she had beautifully painted in water colours depicting upper and lower case letters and matching pictures, so I imagine that she must have taught me to read before I went to school. I grew up in suburbia in a house full of books. My father who had grown up with profound hearing loss had a collection of about a thousand books which lined the walls of almost every room including the loft space. They were a solace for him in a life of social isolation. In some places the books were three deep, significantly reducing the size of our house inside.

When we went away anywhere for longer than a few days, on our return the musty smell of the books was almost overwhelming. To me they were like wall paper. It wasn’t until my father died and we were left with his entire library that I actually opened one to read.

Every Christmas I was given one hardback novel. Although I don’t buy them now, I often pick up hardback novels in Waterstones and they still feel special. My childhood access to books came from the local library. I read library books at a faster rate than I could borrow them which was a constant source of frustration to me. I moved quickly through the complete works of Enid Blyton and all the usual children’s classic novels. I used to hide copies of ‘Cherry Ames Student Nurse’ in the history section, spine inwards so they were still there when I returned a few days later. I started on the historical novels of Jean Plaidy when I was about ten and puzzled over why Catherine of Aragon had sailed to England to lose her virginity. Reading at that stage in my life threw up more questions than answers.

When I was about twelve my father put his foot down and decided that it was time my reading moved on to worthier authors. There had been a list in the newspaper of the top twenty books that should be read by everyone. Top of the list was E M Forster’s Passage to India followed by J D Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. From that point my reading changed direction as I read my way through the classics. Jane Austen, George Elliot, The Brontes.

I have recently rediscovered Dickens, as I previously tended to see his novels school text books. Studying for an A’ Level in English gave me a depth of knowledge, understanding and experience. I remember my first lesson and the revelation of opening my copy of Chaucer’s The Clerk’s Tale to be confronted by the use of the Middle English vernacular. However, it was a breadth of reading that I also craved. Writers such as D H Lawrence provided that, by opening up a world hitherto denied to a child of the 1950s. Books, read at school break time in brown paper covers to hide their titles from my catholic school teachers. Books became my education, joy and escapism giving me lifelong love of words.

My school days on the whole were a chaotic and unsatisfactory experience but on one occasion, when a teacher was absent, copies of Under Milk Wood were dumped on a desk and we were left to read them. The beauty of the prose, the cast of characters and the originality of the words enchant me now, as much as they did then.

Verse in the form of rhyming couplets was part of my life from an early age. My father, a man of great wit and humour used made-up verse to make us laugh and in particular diffuse difficult situations. As a consequence, rhyming verses has always come easily to me. Poetry also captured my imagination. John Donne might be regarded as the finest of the Metaphysical Poets but my heart went to Andrew Marvell and the wit and extravagant humour of To his coy Mistress. "Had we but World enough, and Time, This coyness Lady were no crime…"

The Liverpool poets, Henri, McGough and Pattern deserve a mention here as connecting with the issues affecting the 1960s. Poetry to be read aloud to young people who hitherto might not have found poetry appealing. For me, their poetry was a revelation and made an immediate emotional impact and connection.

While I was a student, a friend in the room next door was studying French so I read my way through her book list. Flaubert, Camus, Zola, Andre Gide. She read them in French while I raced through them in English. I can remember a particular train journey into London when I was totally engrossed in War and Peace. I failed to get out at the end of the line and had to be rescued from a railway siding somewhere round the back of Kings Cross Station.

After that, life took over with demanding jobs and parenthood, and reading took a back seat. I read only spasmodically. My commitment to books returned eventually when my daughter was studying Room with a View for A’ Level. As soon as I picked up her copy and the excitement of reading flooded back.

I have read so many books that I have loved, many of which I have been unable to part with and they still sit in the bookcase. I have, however, only read them the once. I choose books carefully and I don’t give up on books readily. If I do, it gives me a profound sense of failure.

I read now mostly on a Kindle because I can read more quickly and because it enables me to read in supermarket queues, trips to London and anytime when there is a pause which needs to be filled. Several people have said to me that ‘they prefer books’ somehow downgrading my choice of access to reading but carrying heavy tomes around with me is not something I can go back to.

I try to keep up with newly published novels and in this current period of isolation I am looking at my recently purchased copy of The Mirror and the Light.. There couldn’t be a better time to embark on a reading commitment of over nine hundred pages.

On my love of reading, my experience was similar in that one parent (my Mum) read lots of books for pleasure, Agatha Christie being a reliable favourite. My Dad, however, although more educated, never read for pleasure, however many times Mum tried to interest him in a book. Mum used to go to the local lending library every week so it was a normal part of life to go with her, starting off, briefly, with Enid Blyton. A friend then introduced me to Biggles, I have been a fan ever since (I still have a collection of Biggles books, so I'm interested if anyone wants to sell / exchange any). What the books were able to do was to transport me to exotic locations that I would look up on my globe and imagine my hero flying his aircraft and carrying out his noble adventures. While many people take exception to some of the language and characterisations of the books, there are many examples of tolerance of others. Don't forget that they were of their time and things change. From Biggles it moved on, with adventures written by Alistair Maclean, Desmond Bagley & similar. I also took an interest in Dennis Wheatley, initially the black magic books (which on reflection were rubbish!), then the Roger Brook series, which followed Roger through revolutionary France and later the Napoleonic campaigns, until ending shortly after Waterloo (Desperate Measures, Wheatley's last fiction before his death). After reading a lot of text books at college, it took a while before I read for pleasure again. I'm currently reading a mix of fiction & non-fiction, but it's the early formative years that stand out in my mind.

In the mid 1990's I read a book that changed my life for a few years. An opening line which does not make much sense actually as if the book 'changed my life for a few years' then I suppose my life was irrevocably altered by it and there's no going back.

The book was Life and Fate, a novel by Vasily Grossman. The Guardian reviewer remarked that if you had only one more book to read in your lifetime, this should be the one.

Life and Fate  chronicles the lives and experiences of an extended Russian Jewish family through WW2 and immediate post war Russia. The author was a Moscow journalist, a favourite of Stalin with a virtual free pass to all and every theatre of society,  political administration and war front, and he explored them all. (He later wrote of his awareness that as his status was waning, as with all Stalin's favourites,  his name was climbing the list of public enemies, and was subsequently told that his escape from execution came about only by Stalin's sudden death) . 

The reviewer was right - the book was a stunner. I've read avidly all my life, lots or rubbish but inevitably some good stuff as well, but have never been bought to the point of fainting on completing a passage such as found in 'Life and Fate'.  To be frankly honest I've never actually fainted so don't really know if I was at the point of losing consciousness. But it must have been close. His writing did reduce me to tears more than once.

But the book kicked off a personal journey that lasted about 18 months as I decided to learn to speak Russian, and enrolled at The Twickenham Language School, a seedy suite of paint peeling rooms accessed by narrow bare stairs with missing handrail. The office on the second floor was manned by Margaret, the school Secretary and Bursar. There appeared to be no one else in the building. Margaret welcomed me to the college and after relieving me of £300 up front to cover my first term fees ("Russian tutors a few and far apart, and so expensive, John.") she gave me a tour of the school facilities. It was brief as there were four pokey rooms containing ageing chairs and desks, and exhausted blackboard, but no students or teachers.  "You are our only evening student".

Eventually my tutor Mr Spunge ("there's just the two of us John, call me Keith") arrived and lessons began, meeting every other Tuesday evening at 7pm. I never thought to ask what sort of teaching qualifications he had but it did slip that he learned to speak Russian in the course of his national service as an army signalman when he spent his days translating Russian military transcripts. With this one-on-one tuition I progressed and enjoyed learning to read Cyrillic and to count and speak simple expressions and responses.  It felt so exotic! I quickly became bore of the year in my local pub. I was obsessed with everything Russian, to the point of visiting at weekends the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Kensington  where I would try to engage worshippers in casual, broken Russian. I quickly learned that Russians and other Eastern Europeans do not take kindly to spontaneous interruptions, responding with bewilderment or outright hostility. I was probably only saved from physical assault by the proximity of God.

At the end of the following spring term Keith, having taught me how to say in Russian the three expressions British national servicemen believed necessary necessary to survive a Soviet invasion of the UK: 1: "I'm coming out with my hands up." 2:  "Here is my wristwatch." 3: "I'll show you where the women are hiding." He either received a better offer or decided he'd had enough, and my lessons ended. I was still keen. There were no Russian speakers in East Molesey and I muddled along alone. The Harry Potter books were all the rage and I ordered from Hatchards a copy of Harry Potter and The Philosophers Stone in Cyrillic to read alongside the English version. Then one Spring day, out of the blue, Margaret, the Secretary Bursar from Twickenham called to tell me about a Russian Language residential course being held  during the summer break at The Franciscan Learning Centre in Canterbury.

Which is a teaching centre for Franciscan clergy on it's own dedicated campus next to, and sharing access roads with, The University of Kent. It is (was then) a new purpose built, quite futuristic looking campus with teaching blocks, classrooms and lecture hall, restaurant and canteen and accommodation units. Built as an academic centre for Franciscan clergy worldwide, term periods were the same as UK universities and in the break between terms the venue could be used to teach outside courses.

The course, Margaret explained, was being organised by a lady called Mary (surname escape me) and would last a week. Mary was English, a Russian translator and teacher living in London. Four Russian  lecturers who taught English at universities in the USSR would be shipped over for the week.

The weather was brilliant, the accommodation was spartan and perfect ( 12 single rooms per block - bed, chair, desk, basin and central shower block) and the dining was exquisite. Served up canteen style, the food was extraordinarily fine, comparable with the best London restaurants.  Breakfast, lunch & dinner.

On the Sunday afternoon registration took place, meeting Mary and our Russian tutors.  Nyusha, an unsmiling, stern looking lady (team leader) of vast and intimidating proportions ... Irina, a short, thin lady who stared unblinkingly through milk bottle bottom spectacles (Nyusha and Irina looked like a pair of gulag camp guards in Dr Zhivago) ... Michael, slight, lonely, sad looking 30 year old man, as gay as a bee ... and Ludmilla, 26 years old and probably the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

The campus was largely empty apart from one or two bibley type courses. Between classes we would occasionally bump shoulders with exotically dressed clerics from different parts of the world, moving between their lessons but we did not mingle. There were about 70 students from Britain on our course. It was an intense week of lessons in the morning and afternoon, followed by cultural activities in the evening.

I have to confess that post lunch, post wonderful, delicious lunches, I did not gain a lot from the (very intense) lessons and in the evening, accompanied by like minded students, preferred a pub to the cultural sessions.

But there was never a dull day. We were divided into three groups - beginners, intermediate speakers and advanced  speakers seeking to enhance their skills. In the intermediate group and halfway through the first morning, unable to restrain myself from showing off my extremely limited fluency by telling a Russian joke. Nyusha called me out of the class and fiercely demanded to know if I was a Government plant put there to keep an eye on proceedings. (This was not long after Glasnost and I presume that Russian paranoia and suspicion of the west was still strong)) I was incredulous that she should suspect me, of seven or eight students in her class, as the spy. She was dead serious but my blustering denials soon convinced her of my innocence. I was tickled pink.

Nyusha and Irina's language and grammar lessons were tough. They were hard women but by the end of the week I appreciated that they were also warm and embracing and a delight to know. The loosening of their stiff demeanour might have been eased by our trip on Wednesday afternoon (a free afternoon) when I took them to Whitstable for a tea of oysters and Chablis. As we wobbled our way back to the car Nyusha herded me along the street with her umbrella, laughing like a donkey at my feeble Russian as I attempted to protest.

Michael's daytime cultural classes - teaching us to count, colloquialisms, etc were a pleasure, and I cannot really remember what Ludmilla taught because her lessons were charged with sexual tension.

At least, they were for me, I was besotted. I could focus on nothing but her eyes, the freckles on the end of her perfect nose, her throat, the shift of her blouse over her breast, the swish of her skirt, her honeyed voice and ... well, all thoughts of academia were sacrificed to Eros. For the first two days she pretended that she could not speak English and had to be spoken to in Russian, but when her resistance broke, she spoke the sexiest English I'd ever heard.

But the week, apart from the lessons, was not wholly lost to my unrequited lust. In fact on several occasions during the week I was witness to an almost mystical experience. During lesson breaks mid morning, lunch and afternoon Father Anthony, the principal, would wander about his business on the campus usually dressed in shorts, sandals and an Hawaiian shirt. As soon as he appeared a crowd would gather and move with him. He would stop and talk, move on, stop again and so on. It was as if he was surrounded a swarm of happy baby bees. I asked a couple of people who had drifted away what was happening. They didn't know. So one morning I joined the crowd. I cannot tell you what Father Anthony spoke of, or to whom when we slowed or halted, but it was very pleasant to be there. His presence or his voice or his words or all of those, were comforting. He exuded something wonderful. Repeating my experiment two days later, I experienced the same sensation.

I often think about him. I am not a God-botherer, but am an atheist without any doubts about my conviction that belief in God is a victory of hope over reason. But there was something that Father Anthony carried and projected that defies any explanation I can think of. That said, it's not the first time I've experienced this. On the previous occasion, in the mid 1980's, I was sitting by a swimming pool in Johannesburg talking to a nun who was wearing a tiny bikini.  Maybe God really does work in mysterious ways. I'll save that one.

In the course of the week at The Franciscan Learning Centre I became quite friendly with a fellow student and as she showed an interest in my business I invited her and her husband to lunch with my wife and myself at Shepperton Studios, a fortnight after the course finished. They both worked at the BBC where she was a controller administering the World Service broadcasting stations at different locations in the world. A few days before the lunch date she called to ask if they could bring Ludmilla with her. It turns out that on the day the course ended Ludmilla ('Loodi' to her friends) was whisked away by Mr and Mrs BBC, and never did return to Russia. The last I heard she was living in Canada shacked up with an oilman.

But I did meet Mr & Mrs BBC again at a 'reunion' dinner, arranged by course organiser Mary, at the Russian restaurant in Richmond, the name of which I forget. Over the previous year or so I'd become an enthusiastic patron of this particular eaterie. My wife was always rather less enthusiastic as the food was unfailingly awful. This particular evening was one that will stay with me forever, and not because of the food but the strange man I was seated next to, organiser Mary's date for the occasion. He was a nondescript civil servant, very vague about his work. I assumed he was an intelligence man. He made a point of engaging me in conversation but would deflect all my questions, as he wanted only to talk about masturbation.

I felt as if I'd been cast in a surreal movie. As in many busy restaurants the only person it's possible to converse with is the one sitting immediately beside you, so this  was to all intents a 'private' conversation.  But the strange thing was, there was little that was salacious or suggestive about the things he said or his manner of speech, this was a purely technical description of the range of  techniques and imagery he employed to get his rocks off,  recounted in the most extraordinary clinical detail. I tried elbowing Vicki several times, hissing an urgent, "listen to this, just listen to this ..." but she was fully engaged in conversation with Mrs BBC and wasn't interested. Mr BBC sat opposite, smiling benignly as he quaffed glass after glass of the red. I knew that he could not hear or care. He was probably all too familiar with this sort of conversation at the BBC.

Anyway, Life and Fate is a jolly good read. Tip: If you do read it, keep paper and pencil handy to record who is related to whom, and how. For the first few chapters.

I too cannot remember when my love of reading started. I had the advantage of growing up in a house with plenty of books, and an English teacher who fostered my love of reading.  I too read Heidi and What Katy did, but also remember loving the Jennings books when I was about 11.  But what really started me on reading good adult literature were the BBC's Sunday teatime classic adaptations.  When I was 13 they did an adaptation of Emma, and a little later one of Jane Eyre.  I immediately read the novels, and they have remained two of my favourites to this day.  Apart from Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, I soon discovered the joys that Thomas Hardy and later on Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky and other Russian writers.  Like Sue, I am not a wholehearted fan of Dickens, but he does lend himself to good TV adaptations.  In the twentieth century I discovered Mary Webb, Winifred Holtby, Susan Hill, Louis de Bernieres and Kate Atkinson, to name but a few, all of whom have been adapted for the screen at one time or another.  Reading is an important part of my life, and I always s have several books on the go, in different parts of the house. The problem at the moment is that the supply of books new to me (mainly from charity shops) has dried up, and although I have hundreds books in bookcases I have read them all at least once.  Still, a good book deserves revisiting.  Happy reading, everyone -none of us can now say we have not got the time!

It has been very interesting reading everyone’s views on reading. Although I do read some non-fiction (I have just finished Bill Bryson’s The Body) and enjoy the occasional play or poetry, my first love has always been the novel. A good novel can transport me to very different times and places, whilst engaging with my emotional life in an intimate and life-affirming way. I was surprised to read Nick Howland’s dislike of novels, and in particular, Louis de Bernieres. I loved Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Whilst I hate to be manipulated by writing that is falsely sentimental or dishonest, I think de Bernieres writes from the heart, and find his characters very relatable. He can run the gamut of emotion from the horrors of war, to the quirks of village life, the joy of the countryside and encounters with animals to the developing love between two people who should be enemies.

Surely it is the province of art, in all its forms, to engage with our emotions, whether the scenes being depicted are those of suffering or of joy. If I don’t care about any of the characters in a novel or a film, there seems little point in investing time in it. I have long since passed the age where I keep reading or watching if they don’t engage me.

St. Augustine's formula  is so useful: "What is time? When no-one asks me I know. When I am asked I cannot tell". Just substitute 'literature' (or 'race' , or 'socialism', or perhaps even 'the benefit of Brexit') and it still works . 

The usual question with  genre fiction is whether it can be literature (was Terry Pratchett ' guilty of literature' though he hated the literary establishment?). There is certainly  literary SF and Fantasy among the schlock and there is some that we may want to  read despite an irritating   style. There is also  literary crime fiction, and much that is a least literate, but perhaps the thriller genre is too formulaic and too' breathless', dependant upon fast moving and improbably incident, to keep the pages turning to qualify. Illustrate and discuss.

As some are sharing their youthful experiences  I will give mine as it is probably typical of what A level was at the time. I would like to know what others had to tackle. 

I didn't do Eng.lit at O level as I thought I was heading for the sciences until I fell of my horse in a blaze of light. So I missed Twelfth Night and The Nun's Priest's Tale and my first encounter with 'Literature' was at S level.  I saw  Henry IV parts 1 and 2 on a 6th form trip to  Stratford, one of them after I had had a couple of under-age pints of Flowers bitter at Shakespeare's local  and was feeling very uncomfortable for most of the first act. Henry IV Part 1 is probably the best of all the history plays; Henry V of course has some of the qualities of a pageant without the pageantry and cries out for filming, when you can bulk out the numbers with extras and have a lot of galloping Knights , which of course is why it has been filmed at least twice, to very different effect. (And then there is Chimes at Midnight ). 

When I did my S level the Eng.Lit. syllabus firmly centred around Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton, these three, and the greatest of these was Shakespeare. Other things were optional. Whatever you got you were expected to memorise a lot of quotations, reproduce them and comment upon them. 

I didn't warm to Othello, especially after seeing Olivier doing blackface and rolling his eyes at Maggie Smith,  who looked, with those shoulders, as if she could probably knock him out with one blow before he came close to strangling her. 

Paradise Lost book 1 was an easy read and you were almost bound to be asked about the characterisation of Satan: throw in something about  blank verse, latinate language, inverted syntax and epic similes and you were home and dry.

Chaucer was a problem especially as our teacher clearly wished he was somewhere else doing something different and kept reading it with a modern pronunciation, which , pace Ian Robinson (Chaucer's Prosody ) doesn't work,  even if you do get the rhythm right.  We got the Knights Tale, which is the longest of all and rather quaint in its assumptions about the code of chivalry and the place of women. It is not quite the bore that it is sometimes made out to be if you pick  up the humour. The recently late Python Terry Jones was very keen on it, to the extent that he wrote a book about it. If you got to the end you had read , and memorised for quoting , a lot of Middle English  and it no longer seemed so  alien; if you later read Langland and the Gawain poet , or the Scottish Chaucerians, you realised that Chaucer was making it easy for you. (If you went on to learn any  pre-Conquest English you  realised that anything after 1066 was already  pretty modern. ) The trouble is it's generally much more difficult to say something about extended narrative verse than it is about short lyric poem, because you can't apply the mechanics of 'close reading' -which  was the fashionable approach at the time. 

What else? There was curious rag-bag and some of the options were very odd; who thought that they would fire up teenagers ? Every Man in His Humour : I have since read most of Ben Jonson's  comedies and I have to ask, why not Volpone ?  We got a trip to the Oxford Playhouse to Frank Hauser's production with a brilliant Leo MacKern so there would have been an obvious tie-in. A Man for All Seasons was very 'in'; we did a school production as well and then there was the film. Then we had Bacon's Essays. Bacon's Essays; no one who has read any of Bacon could ever form the impression that he was really Shakespeare. Believe me. We did Wordsworth,  beyond the daffodils,  and Gerard Manley Hopkins having a difficult time with God. The one  had a tin ear and the other  assimilated poetry to music, imitating Welsh cynghanedd, so they were a curious contrast . We couldn't avoid  Lawrence then , I had to read Sons and Lovers and have avoided  him ever since ( apart from 30 carefully selected pages of Lady Chatterley's Lover and Ken Russell's film) . Finally, Conrad's Nostromo; I wanted to like it because he was Polish, writing in his third language. It was  wonderful novel when I read it again 20 years later but incomprehensible at the time. I don't know how I passed.

I too had a copy of the Pictorial History of the Wild West and it gave me hours of pleasure. I didn't remember it until David mentioned it.

For as long as I have been able to, I have always read books. I don't have a Kindle and, like records, I love books as objects as well as for their contents.

I previously said in Musical Memories we didn't have music when I was growing up, but we did have books. Both of my parents read and they belonged to at least one Book Club. My father generally only read non-fiction,  biographies and history mainly and my mother read quite widely, short stories, some detective fiction, romances and historical fiction. 

I did not get my love of reading from school, I only came to poetry and drama later in life because of my experience at school. I was encouraged, by my parents, to join the library as soon as I could. In my teens I borrowed records as well as books from the library in Hammersmith. My parents did not try to restrict what I read in any way and I read the James Bond books and Bonjour Trieste when I was quite young and almost certainly didn't understand much of the contents. My parents were politically very conservative, but quite liberal in other ways.

I read comics, The Eagle springs to mind, and very early 'graphic novels', where fiction was put into comic-book   illustrative form. There were a couple of boys at my primary school who could draw panels from comics or these 'graphic novels very accurately and we were very impressed by this.

One book that had a profound influence on me in my teens was The Outsider by Colin Wilson. This lead on to a number of writers like Dostoevesky and Sartre who Wilson termed outsiders. Colin Wilson had considerable success for a few years and then becamed ridiculed for some of his views. He is the reason why I am quite well read in some areas and in others, like English Literature, trying to catch up.

I think Chris's idea of also saying what we are currently reading is a very good one. I am reading Performance by Peter Buck. It is about the making of the (very strange) 1970 British film of the same name starring James Fox and Mick Jagger. Also The Corner by David Simon & Edward Burns. David Simon created The Wire, the HBO series initially about the police and drug dealers in Baltimore. The Corner is about the same thing. Finally I am reading on-line an American novel which is my choice for the next on-line literature group and for that reason I will not name it here. I generally have more than one book on -the-go at the same time, especially when we have the novels chosen for the literature group to read every other fortnight.

In the early years I loved the idea of reading but like some, I mainly found school reading uninspiring but our mum took us to the local library for our fortnightly books. I remember all sorts of titles and authors that I enjoyed. I also remember an awareness of experiencing the feelings and places which the books evoked, but not always the plots or small details of those stories. One author was Malcolm Saville, whose books were about real locations – Shrewsbury, Rye and London – I followed the various series of adventures involving a band of children in the vogue of the time ( C. S Lewis, Blyton, Ransome and I also read these in varying degrees). Saville's books had a strong sense of place and the way he incorporated the imagery of mountains and coast as intrinsic to the stories created a yearning to visit these places. Even now I love authors who can evoke the feelings of the characters through the atmosphere of place and situation. For this reason I enjoyed the work of Rosemary Sutcliffe whose historical novels were so thought-provoking and focussed on the intricate lives of families in so many periods from the Romans to the eighteenth century. I remember especially, The Silver Branch (Roman) and The Armourer's House (medieval/Tudor)– so engrossing on a winter's evening or a lazy summer afternoon.

The teenage years found me reading Tolkien, Kafka and various sci-fi books – Bradbury, Heinlein. I found some of the set books in my ‘O' and ‘A' level studies more attractive than others. I loved Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights but not Austen's Pride and Prejudice . Over the last decades, I've enjoyed Helen Dunmore for her subtle approach to historical writing, Annie Proulx ( Accordion Crimes is a fascinating read with the main character, the life of an accordion and those who owned it, with a sharp and vivid style that takes you right into the drama). I find Margaret Atwood ‘s novels worth reading although often difficult but once I reach halfway they grip me with the preoccupations of the characters and the complexities of their internal lives.

There are many others but I am reading Kate Atkinson's Big Sky at the moment and really enjoyed her last book, Transcription , linking WW2 and the present day. She has a wonderful skill combining a light touch of comedy with a strong narrative that unearths thought provoking angles on her subject.

Anyway, I wish you all some very happy reading days ahead - the escape is so wonderful!

(Part One: The Early Years c. 1954-1961)

I was brought up in the same household as John Simkin (my older brother) so my early memories of books (or lack of books) at home are very similar to his. I, too, remember seeing our Dad reading library books in the house and his distinctive habit of carrying half a dozen of his borrowed books (bound together with a leather strap) as he walked to and from the local public library. I can also confirm that our Mum admitted that she had never read a "proper book" (i.e. novel) in her life and, from when our Dad was killed in a road accident in 1956 until the early 1960s, very few books were ever seen in our house.

My earliest memory of "reading for pleasure" was associated with comics rather than books. Between 1957 and 1960, every Tuesday after school, my Mum would bring home for me to read, a copy of the children's comic magazine Express Weekly. I remember the comic was warm and moist because it shared my Mum's shopping bag with the "weekly treat" of take-away 'Pie & Mash' (with parsley liquor). My older brother John was not left out. Mum would bring John a copy of Tiger, which featured Roy of the Rovers ', a comic strip about the adventures of a footballer named ‘Roy Race', who played for Melchester Rovers.

The first story I would read in my copy of ‘Express Weekly ' would be ‘Wulf the Briton' , which told of the exploits of a Celtic warrior who opposed the Roman invasion of Britain. The Wulf the Briton ', comic strip was written and drawn by R. S. Embleton (Ronald Sydney Embleton). I was more interested in the beautifully drawn pictures, but I expect comic strips like ‘ Wulf the Briton ' encouraged me to read and probably stirred my interest in History.

For two or three years I attended the same " terrible secondary school " as my brother. (The school was Cambell Secondary School for Boys in Dagenham, but thankfully, when I was about 13, I transferred to Park Modern School, a "mixed" secondary modern school in Barking, Essex).

At Cambell Secondary School for Boys, as my brother recalled in his memoir, " not one teacher gave me a love of reading ". In fact, in my case, the teaching staff at the school gave me an aversion to reading. At Cambell School we were expected to learn "by heart" poems, such as  The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. If we failed to remember the poem and could not recite the poem from memory, we were given "the slipper" (i.e. a few slaps on the backside with a plimsoll). Not surprisingly with this unenlightened method of teaching literature, my school days did not promote a love of poetry. 

Reading novels at Cambell School also proved to be a painful experience for me. In the first year of secondary school, we had a book that served as a "class reader". The book concerned was The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson. The Black Arrow was "a historical novel for boys", written in 1888, and told the story of a knight, Richard Shelton, who had exciting adventures during the Wars of the Roses. The set of ‘class readers' of The Black Arrow were shabby, soft covered books, published for schools, probably sometime in the 1950s. The book covers were plain and in a uniform colour, and the small volume contained no illustrations.

In December, 1960, as a Christmas present, my aunt and uncle bought me a brand new, hardback copy of The Black Arrow , which had an attractively drawn dust-cover in full-colour and was illustrated throughout. It was noticeably larger and heavier than the The Black Arrow ‘class reader' supplied by the school and it was strikingly different in appearance. As the ‘English' teacher strolled down the aisles between our wooden desks, whilst one of my classmates read aloud from The Black Arrow , he noticed that I was reading from what appeared to be a different book to everyone else in the class. Outraged by my perceived impertinence and rebelliousness, the teacher snatched the book from my desk and smacked me round the head with my large, heavy (and very hard) personal copy of The Black Arrow . Sadly, this is my only lasting memory of contact (in two senses of the word) with proper literature during my time at Cambell School.

The first book I remember owning and adoring was a large-format hardback copy of a Pictorial History of the Wild West by James D. Horan and Paul Sann. I first came across this book in my local public library. When my sister Tricia asked me what I wanted for my '12th Birthday' present, I did not hesitate and requested  copy of a ‘ Pictorial History of the Wild West '.

Although I had asked my sister for a copy of a Pictorial History of the Wild West , I really didn't expect to get the book as a present. A large book of 252 pages with copious illustrations, I thought the book would be too expensive and beyond the means of my sister, who was working as a student nurse at that time. I still remember with delight the moment I tore off the gift wrap paper to reveal this treasured book. 

As you can see from the picture above, showing a double-page spread from inside  a copy of this wonderful book, the Pictorial History of the Wild West contained not only photographic illustrations but also a large amount of written text. At last, at the age of 12, I had a book of my own which I would enjoy reading. This book which promised a " True Account of the Bad Men, Desperadoes, Rustlers, and Outlaws of the Old West- and the Men Who Fought Them to Establish Law and Order" would represent the first real step in my love of reading books.

(Part 2: 1962-1968)

As a schoolboy, I was more likely to turn on the television than open a book. Ironically, though, TV brought me to reading. As a boy, I was fascinated by ‘The Wild West' and consequently, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, I was a fan of American TV shows such as Gun Law (Gunsmoke), Maverick, Wagon Train, Bonanza,  Tenderfoot (Sugarfoot) and Have Gun Will Travel . It was, therefore, a pleasant surprise when I discovered that local newsagents and bookstalls stocked full-colour comic book versions of these TV 'Westerns', published by the US firm Dell Comics. 

The Sunday ‘teatime slot' on BBC television was occasionally given over to serialisations of classic novels (e.g. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, broadcast in 1962). TV serialisations of classic novels in the 1960s were in black & white and ran over a dozen weeks in 30 minute episodes, but I became aware that the classic novels were also available in easily digestible comic book form, printed in full colour, and read in under 30 minutes. One of the first classic novels I read in the form of a comic-strip was David Copperfield which was published in the ‘Classics Illustrated' comic-book magazine series.

When I was 13 years of age, on the recommendation of my headteacher, Mr Gant, I transferred to Park Modern Secondary School , where it was possible to study for GCE exams in the company of members of the opposite sex. Unlike the dreadful secondary boys' school I attended in Dagenham, Park Modern School actually employed a member of staff who taught ‘English Literature'. Mr Gray, our ‘English Literature' teacher was humourless, tall, thin and physically unattractive, with a beaky nose and a tendency to spew forth spittle with his words of wisdom, yet I probably looked forward to his lessons more than any other whilst I attended Park Modern. Through his teaching, Mr Gray made me realise that reading involved more than recognising words and following a narrative. Mr Gray introduced concepts such as structure, style and symbolism and helped us to examine fictional characters and consider what motivated them. In our GCE course the set books were the novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, the play Julius Caesar by Shakespeare, and to represent poetry, a long epic poem by Percy Percy Bysshe Shelley, of which I cannot remember anything, not even the title. Although not a particularly likeable man, I found Mr Gray's lessons interesting and engaging. Sometimes we had to read the books in silence, taking notes on what, under Mr Gray's guidance, we thought were the salient points for that particular exercise, but on other occasions Gray would allocate speaking roles to members of the class and so, when reading passages of Julius Caesar, although not acting the scene at the front of the class, each of us would try to speak the words "in character" while sitting at our desk. I seem to remember that when we had "reading aloud" sessions involving A Tale of Two Cities , Mr Gray would take the part of the narrator and we would chime in with lines of dialogue delivered by our particular character (Jerry Cruncher, Monsieur Defarge, Charles Darnay, etc.). I adopted this method of dealing with a ‘class reader book' when I became a teacher over 6 years later.

(Part 3: 1969 to the Present)

My next phase of reading was associated with my involvement in politics. My brother, John, who is 4 years my senior, had persuaded me to attend meetings of the Harold Hill branch of the Young Socialists. I think I must have been, at 16, one of the youngest members of the group. Most of the young men in the Young Socialists (YS) were wholly immersed in politics and were ‘well-read’ in political theory, history, political science and any subject related to Socialism. (There were only a few female members in our branch of the Young Socialists, and they were not quite so obsessed with politics as the male contingent). During the discussions at our weekly YS meetings, I felt inadequate and out of my depth as my comrades quoted Marx, Lenin and Trotsky and referred to books of which I had never previously heard. In a similar fashion to the way I embarked on my informal ’Literature’ course on my daily commute to work in London, I decided to educate myself in Socialism and Radical Politics.

To improve my political knowledge, I purchased Karl Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy; Edited by T.B. Bottomore and Maximilien Rubel (Pelican Books, 1963). A number of other books on politics and socialist thinkers joined this volume on my bookshelves over the next few months. In addition to political theory, I also started to acquire history texts such as The Making of the English Working Class by E. P. Thompson and The Common People, 1746-1946 by G.D. H. Cole & Raymond Postgate. It was during my ‘politically active’ phase that I read The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (Robert Noonan), which I had been told had converted more people to Socialism than any other British novel. This novel, which was first published in 1914, three years after the death of its author, has been described by the writer Allan Sillitoe as “the first good novel of English working-class life”.

At home, I took the opportunity to read a few of the Pan paperback novels that my sister’s boyfriend/husband, Jim, had donated to my brother John. I also looked for novels which had the subject matter and a social setting to which I could relate. It was during this period in the late 1960s that I read British ‘social realist’ novels such as A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow (1960). Around this time, I also read Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence (1913). I was also becoming aware of American fiction and the novels I particularly enjoyed reading in my late teens and early twenties included classics such as Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884), Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955), To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960) and In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1965). Whilst on this ‘American theme’ I would also like to mention the collection of strange stories by Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) and the non-fiction work Ordeal by Hunger: The Story of the Donner Party by George R. Stewart (1936). I consider Nabokov’s Lolita as one of the greatest works of literature written in the English language. (The subject matter of Nabokov’s novel still causes some discomfort. I still remember the response I received from those attending the inaugural meeting of a ‘County Council Book Group’ when I openly declared that my favourite novel of all time was Lolita).

I started to buy quality newspapers such as The Guardian and The Observer and soon got into the habit of reading book reviews and articles about writers. It was through this method that I discovered the German author Günter Grass. I eventually read and enjoyed all three books in his ‘Danzig Trilogy’ (The Tin Drum, Cat and Mouse and Dog Years), but the first in the series, The Tin Drum (1959) remains my favourite and, as with other treasured books, I have read this novel several times. The Günter Grass novels and many of my other favourite books were published in paperback by Penguin Books. (I heard Terry Waite on the radio today recalling his days as a hostage in Lebanon from 1987 to 1991, the first four years of which were spent in solitary confinement. Waite begged his captors for reading matter in English and was given The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill and A Handbook to Breast Feeding. Knowing that Penguin Books published “quality books”, Waite drew a picture of the Penguin logo and asked the hostage-takers to bring him books that carried the Penguin emblem).

Even after we were obliged to disband the Harold Hill Young Socialists around 1969, I continued to read politically-themed books and books on related subjects. For instance, I remember reading Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson when I was working as a messenger for a legal firm and receiving a visit from Enoch Powell whilst I was reading the book during a break.

I was working as a bus conductor for London Transport when I decided to train as a schoolteacher. I had been discouraged from reading books during my breaks at Barking Garage because I received ‘stick’ from my fellow conductors and bus drivers for even reading The Guardian in the canteen. (My work colleagues did not consider The Guardian as a proper newspaper as it did not have a horse-racing page). They were suspicious of me because of my reading habits, so, to gain acceptance, I stopped bringing books to work and switched to the Daily Mirror.

As a “mature student” (aged 22), I started training as teacher at West Midlands College of Education. For the next 4 years nearly all my reading was associated with my teaching course (Child Development, Sociology of Education, Educational Psychology, etc. etc.). It was only when I was on teaching practice in schools that I turned to fiction and poetry. (I recall using The Dream-Time, a historical novel for children by Henry Treece, to supplement my lessons on Neolithic Britain). When I eventually started full-time teaching in a large comprehensive school in Basildon New Town, I began reading fiction again, partly because of my duties as a ‘Humanities’ teacher. It was in the ‘literature’ component of the Integrated Studies course for Year 7 pupils that I introduced readings from A Kestrel for a Knave - aka ‘Kes’ - by Barry Hines (1968) and There is a Happy Land by Keith Waterhouse (1957). Waterhouse’s novel, set on a council estate, is a wonderful evocation of a working-class childhood and remains one of my favourite books. Another book which was centred on children but which I enjoyed as an adult was A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes (1929). I got back into the habit of reading recently published novels, such as Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone (1975). I had developed a love of History while training to be an ‘Art Teacher’ at West Midlands College. After qualifying, I taught ‘History’ in a secondary school. Consequently, I continued to read non-fiction books on subjects that particularly interested me e.g. The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill (1972).

In my mature years, I have carried on my love of reading. When I travel on public transport, especially on long train or bus journeys, I always try to carry a book with me. Each night, before I settle down to sleep, I read for thirty minutes or so. When I wake up in the night, unable to sleep, I reach for a novel. I am still trying to educate myself when it comes to ‘Literature’. Realising that, at the age of 70, I had never read works by William Faulkner, I read two of his novels, back to back. After a discussion about the merits of the novelist Jane Austen at one of John’s evening meetings, I tried to read (but failed to finish) one of her novels.

A common pattern for my practice of reading is to see a film, a television or radio drama, or even a play, and then follow it up by reading the book on which it was based. For instance, I am currently reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel The Idiot after listening to an impressive radio dramatization of the book on Radio 4 Extra. Similarly, a few weeks earlier, after hearing on Radio 4 Extra The True Story of Martin Guerre (a drama based on the 16th century notes of the trial judge, Jean de Coras), I dug out my old copy of The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis, which I first read after seeing the 1983 French film of the same name, which starred Gérard Depardieu and Nathalie Baye. (This practice of ‘follow-up’ reading has been a common feature throughout my life. I discovered the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (1944) in my forties, after viewing, on television, the screen adaptation, which was directed by Elia Kazan in 1945. Following the viewing of the 2000 comedy-drama film Wonder Boys directed by Curtis Hanson, which had been adapted by Steve Kloves from the novel by Michael Chabon, I sought out other fictional works written by Chabon). After enjoying the ITV drama series ‘White House Farm’ in January of this year, I borrowed my brother’s copy of The Murders at White House Farm by Carol Ann Lee (2015), on which the television drama was based.

Apologies for the length of my contribution to this discussion thread; I now realise that the subject of ‘My Love of Reading’ could fill a good-sized book in itself.

I will conclude by listing the novels I have especially enjoyed over the last twenty years (i.e. in the 21st Century). Perhaps members of this group could compile and circulate their own lists of favourite novels.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (2000)
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver (2003)
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (2008)
Room by Emma Donoghue (2010)
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt (2011)
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2013)
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry (2016)
Golden Hill by Francis Spufford (2016)

My father was a member of the local library. I have early memories of seeing my father walking along the road with his library books tied together with his belt, being carried over his shoulder. He took out six books at a time (he used my mother's library cards to supplement his own). My mum never read a book in her life (her mother had told her that women don't read books). I also remember a scene that took place many times. My dad was trying to read a book while sitting in his armchair, whereas my mother wanted to have a conversation about something. Eventually, my father would put his book down and say, "Alright then, tell me what you need to say". With this, my mother would, without saying anything, return to the kitchen.

My father was killed in an accident when I was eleven. We did not have books in the house and my main reading was football programmes. I went to a terrible secondary school and not one teacher gave me a love of reading (or learning). I left school at fifteen and went to work at a local factory.

My attitude towards reading changed at the age of sixteen. My older sister got a new boyfriend (he later became her husband). Jim Woods had a cousin who worked for a company that printed Pan paperbacks. He would get free copies of the books, but he did not read so he passed them on to Jim. He did not read novels either (most young working-class lads did not read books in the 1960s – they probably still don't). Jim, I suspect, in an attempt to impress my mother, as well as pleasing my sister, gave these paperbacks to me.

At first, I just lined them up on the top of my table. At the time I loved collecting things, football programmes, cigarette cards, stamps, etc. I took the same attitude to the books. I thought they were very attractive to look at and added a bit of colour to my bedroom. One day I decided to read one of these books. It was Ernest Raymond's, We, the Accused . It had originally been published in 1935 and told the story of a man who had murdered his wife and was waiting to be executed. I became totally involved in this book and became very emotional when at the end he was led away to be executed. I was confused. Here was a man who I should have disliked because he had killed his wife in order to be with his mistress. However, such was the skill of the writer, I ended up feeling sorry for him, and from that day on I have been an opponent of capital punishment.

I now started reading the other books. The next one was Charles E. Israel's, The Mark (1961). Once again, the main character was on the surface unlikeable. He had just been released from prison after being found guilty of having sex with an underage girl. He starts a relationship with a new woman who has a young daughter. He wants to have a relationship based on honesty but fears if he tells the woman about his past, she will completely reject him.

The next book was Charles Beaumont's The Intruder (1959). The novel concerns a racist, Adam Cramer, who arrives in a small Southern town in order to incite white people to racial violence against black people and court-ordered school integration. I knew nothing at all about racial prejudice in the United States (or in the UK for that matter) at this time. Once again, a novel changed my consciousness and had a dramatic impact on the development of my moral code.

The fourth book I read was Donald Downes' Orders to Kill (1958). Gene Summers, a young American bomber pilot, is selected to go on an OSS mission to Nazi-occupied Paris and kill a man (Marcel Lafitte) believed to be a double-agent working in the French Resistance. Summers becomes very friendly with Lafitte and becomes convinced of his innocence. However, when he tells his commanding officer back in London about his doubts, he is instructed to kill the man. He therefore kills Lafitte. Soon afterwards he discovers the man was innocent. The main point of the book is to explore the morality of killing. As a pilot, Summers had no problems killing hundreds of civilians with his bombs. However, when he has to kill a man who he has been told is a traitor, he finds this difficult to do. Downes was a member of the OSS and later admitted it was based on a true story. After reading this book I became a neo-pacifist. I say that because I have never hit anybody since reading that book at 16. However, I expect, if forced into a corner, I might resort to violence.

When I was 18, I became very involved in politics. Now my reading mainly concentrated on history and political philosophy, but I continued to read novels, although I tended to prefer novelists who were interested in politics such as George Orwell. However, there is no doubt, that those early novels helped shape my political convictions.

At the age of 25 I joined the Open University. I took courses such as the "19th Century Novel" and "Twentieth Century Poetry". This involved reading a lot of novels and poetry. I also took several courses on history and after I completed my degree, I became a history teacher. I also began writing history books and over the last forty years I have spent most of my time reading biographies and autobiographies as well as hundreds of books on history. I only read novels on holiday until recently when I joined a Book Group.

Reading over the last fifty years has given me immense pleasure. This is partly because of the quality of the writing, but I can also get a lot from a poorly written book if it is about a subject, I am interested in. The main enjoyment I get from reading is entering the world of another person. To see a situation as they see it. It helps us develop empathy, the cornerstone of a civilized society. As Shelley once said, "morality is imagination". He used his poetry to try and persuade the wealthy middle-classes to consider what life was like for the working-classes living in the early part of the 19 th century. Shelley was right, it is through literature we become better people. The problem is that not enough people read books.

I cannot remember learning to read although, funnily enough, I can remember learning to write.  My grandma and dad used to read to me a lot when I was little so  presumably there were books in our homes although moving around such a lot I can't remember. 

I suppose I must have learnt to read when I went to school in Manchester – an experience which put me off school from the day I started until the day I finally left.  I remember going to school in Worthing for a short time when I was sent to live with my grandparents when my father was seriously ill and enjoying reading whilst I was there.  I can't really remember reading much when I was at school in Germany, but I must have done quite a lot because when I returned to England I was way ahead of most of the pupils at the school I was sent to in Salisbury. 

I then started taking myself off to the library and avidly reading from that point on.  One of my favourite books still is Little Women – perhaps as an only child I found it fascinating to read of the bonds between the sisters.  I enjoyed Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, I enjoyed Thomas Hardy although I must admit I have never read any Charles Dickens, but have seen numerous adaptations of his work on television and films.  There always used to be a programme on BBC television on Sundays about teatime where various books were adapted.

So it seems that most of my life I have taken a huge interest in reading and always have a book on the go.  I have even joined a Book Club set up by our residents' group.  We read all sorts of genre – a lot of which I wouldn't choose, but it's good to give them a go – and we always drink a lot of Prosecco at our meetings.  Who would have thought that when I went off to the library by myself that many, many years later I would be in lockdown because of a worldwide pandemic, but apart from my family, the people who would be making sure I was safe and provided for would be the women I have met through a Book Club.

My goodness you have certainly taken me back to where my love of reading started. For me too it all started with Milly, Molly, Mandy. Isn't that a coincidence?  Do you happen to  also remember Ma  and Pa Kettle ? Enid Blyton was also a terrific influence in my early years. 

When I grew older, I wanted to explore writers who  were thought provoking and who led me into new and exciting ways to understand the world around me. I guess my first three books which enabled me to do this were Plato's Republic, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, and 1984, George Orwell. I was completely fascinated by the vision of these Writers and their creativity in forming new societies, vastly different to the one in which I lived.  I don't know that I would wish to live in any of them, although some would argue, I suspect, that in some ways, we actual do, but I guess that  is maybe a discussion for another day... The journey,  for me at this stage was fascinating and shaped the kind of books I was going to read during my life.

I like books that firstly and most importantly, are well written. A book which the reader, feels,  they  are effortlessly, guided, through the novel with ease.   I like it to be meaningful, with interesting and well formed characters, and a story which hooks me from the first to the last page. I like to be transported into the novel -  to see and feel from the perspective of its characters and be absorbed by their story.

My latest book is Margaret Attward's The Blind Assassin. I am simply amazed by this women's writing. It is totally beautiful. in fact it overshadows the perhaps less favourable theme and story line. I do not mean to be disparaging here, as it is a brilliant story but her writing is so powerful  that, it is what I see first!

I love the classics. Charlotte and Emily Bronte but not their sister Ann. I felt she lacked the brilliance of her sisters. Of course Charles Dickens... .

Iris Murdock . I have read and loved all her books. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey, Scott FitzGerald, Tender is the Night. Hemingway For Whom The Bell Tolls.

Another recent book is by Ann Griffin When All Is Said  It is a poignant book about an elderly man who reminisces about the five most important people in his entire life.

It is written in a depth that leaves the reader pondering   the old mans dilemma long after the last page is turned.

Well Sheila Day, just by mentioning Milly, Molly, Mandy, you have taken me back rather a long way and I didn't think for one moment, when I awoke this morning, that I would be focussed on what Milly meant to me ? So thank you, I am most grateful.