Jan-Maat’s Reviews > Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives > Status Update

Astrid Lindgren the six Bullerby children, this is the only book originally published in a language other than English that she discusses so far.

I like to read a pure 'ideas' novel now & again or a mood piece. It gives me tge feeling as when I occasionally try to do my son's maths homework, now tgat he is in secondary school. Rusty, underused parts of my brain have to crank up & put themselves into motion & it feels interesting

- she has not named "a pure"ideas' novel" so far in this book. Perhaps like in thus case is theoretical?

And that, of course, is why we buy hundreds more books than we can ever read each year. It's like laying down wine, but it is you who changes and matures until you're ready to consume your stores.

She shelves Stefan Zweig beware of pity
This is the first mention of a book not originally written in English...

And yes, a well meaning friend did tell me I should be looking into the naby's eyes & talking to him while feeding, instead of reading; & yes, it did take me a long time to talk to her again.

Towards the end of 2010 & after some kerfuffle; what with me being so old & not liking sex very much because you can't read through it (footnote: well you can - but God, the fuss when they find out!), i finally got pregnant.

When we got home, a newly married couple, Christopher once again asked the question he had been asking every few years ever since we 1st met. Was I ready to merge our book collections yet? ...'I just don't think we're that close', I said. I agreed to have a baby instead.

We got married. In a cgurch, in London, with a do afterwards. It was a big fuss & I wouldn't do anything like it again...however much of a church weeding you hand off to your mother, sister & husband, it will still make studiply, unexpectedly & unavoidably large inroads into good reading time

An old, well thumbed Puffin edition of Little House on the prairie caught my eye. I had never read it, because along with most of my generation ( in tge UK at least) I larged associated (it) with the television series of the same name. & I did not like the television series... I do remember that the ipening credits alone put me off...far more significantly I hated Michael Landon's hair. Feared it, even.

Second-hand book buyers - they're waiting to see what cones to them...it's about finding new treasures, finding what you don't yet know you lije, what you don't yet know you'll love. The internet has brought us many good things (I'd struggle to name 5 off the top of my head, but I'm sure they exist) but it has ruined the joy of serendipity.