What Book...

…are you reading now?

I always have multiple books on the go and one I am listening to (and loving!) is The Danger Of Small Things by Caryl Lewis.

It’s a feminist, dystopian book set in a land where bees are extinct. Boys are trained to fight, girls are taught to pollinate plants by hand, and the arts are banned.

It focuses on our interconnectedness with nature, and the power of female friendships in the face of oppression and revolution. I was recommended this book and it has not disappointed. I’m squirrelling away any minutes I can just to keep listening!

… would you take to a desert island?

Well I wouldn’t survive long . . . so I think I’d like Anne Of Green Gables as it is one of my go-to comfort books. I’ve read it more times than I can count and it never fails to make me laugh.

Part of my love for this book is how familiar I am with it, but I also find the characters have, in all their flaws, such warmth and realness. Plus, I love Anne’s descriptions of nature. In the past, this book (and the rest of the series) has reminded me of the good in the world.

… first gave you the reading bug?

J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series! Growing up with these stories was something else, as was the excitement of the next book being released.

I’m partially sighted but audiobooks weren’t as common then, and the large-print editions came out later than the regular print books.

But there was no way I was patient enough to wait, so my first experiences of these books were of them being read to me.

I have such great memories of this time, especially when my older sister would read aloud to me. I’d beg her until she gave in and then she’d make up extra lines either to make me laugh, or to rage-bait me (which worked!).

…left you cold?

I love to re-read books and very often return to the stories I read when I was a child. So many of them made me cry, or even frightened, but nothing compared to Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl. That book, and the ‘Vermicious Knids’ caused terror in me! I have never re-read it, nor do I ever plan to.