Bookworm

Lucy Mangan speaks for all of us in the tribe of bookworm in this wonderful memoir that recounts her childhood reading.

“Remember hiding a book on your lap to get yourself through breakfast? Remember getting hit on the head by footballs in the playground because a game had sprung up around you while you were off in Cair Paravel? Remember taking yourself off to the furthest corner of the furthest sofa in the furthest room of the house with a stack of Enid Blytons and praying that everyone would forget about you till bedtime? If so, this is the book for you. But then, most books are. You are, like me, a bookworm.”

Oh yes. Lucy shares the stories of her experiences in books. She shares a story her non-bookish mother tells about the first time she put Lucy in a baby bouncer and Lucy just sat there. Lucy tells her version of the story:

“I think the explanation lies in the fact that I wasn't really a baby. I was a bookworm. For the true bookworm, life doesn't really begin until you get hold of your first book. Until then—well, you're just waiting, really.”

Are you nodding your head as I did? If so, you may find that Lucy's story is your story, transported, perhaps, to America, or to a bit earlier time, but the storyline is the same. It's a lovely story, of finding all the heartstopping books of one's life, like Where the Wild Things Are and the Roald Dahl stories and the Blyton books.

Oh, and did I ever bond with Mangan when she describes the pain a bookworm feels when she gives birth to what increasingly becomes apparent is a non-bookworm child. We try and try and try, but it's really no use, is it?

I can think of a hundred people who would love to read this book. You are probably one of them. What are you waiting for?