My Mum was recently hospitalised having a hip op, so I took a hip opportunity to get retro and rediscover elements of my 70s’ childhood at her house.
I collected dust foraging in the loft and under the bed unearthing years of old toys, the silk ballet tutu Mum made when I was five and school paraphernalia including the summer’s suggested reading for English before I started my O’ Levels.
I was blown away by the varied collection and stunned by how little of the literature I have poured over in the twenty-six years since I scraped a ‘B’ in my exam.
I made an instant decision to change this even if it takes me the next 26 years! I didn’t have the maturity or experience at 15 to make the most of some of the World’s most renowned and respected authors and I’m not one for re-reading a book, so it’s probably good to have waited a while before tucking in to some of the titles.
That said, maybe if I had sat down to War and Peace or a hearty helping of Doris Lessing I would have been inspired to look further than Virginia Andrews’ Flowers in the Attic trilogy or Shirley Conran’s Lace, with the dirty bits remembered and recounted!
Some classics riveted me; Thomas Hardy, for instance. I was enraptured by him in my late teens and early 20s; I read Dickens’ Oliver Twist, which was the first book to make me cry but it’s only since watching Bleak House on telly that I’ve felt the urge return to this maestro of social storytelling.
Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front is under my bed waiting for my attention. I want to give this book the time and energy it deserves and feel comforted by the fact it’s only 215 pages long. Not only was it on my school list but it was highly recommended in a recent BBC Radio 4 book programme, so much so that I’m almost scared to read it in case it doesn’t move me in the way the reviewers were.
I bought Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, years ago, but have yet to delve in (well, it’s a boys book isn’t it?!). I can’t believe I’m admitting it but I’ve never read Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre or Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I’m annoyed with myself that I’ve been seduced repeatedly by sumptuous TV adaptations rather than imaginative originals.
Dostoyevsky, Balzac, more Steinbeck, Graham Greene, James Joyce, Sylvia Plath, Daphne du Maurier are just a few old timers I aim to tackle but I will do so either side of contemporary classics or friends’ recommendations that I want to read including crime fiction. I was never into reading crime until I tried out Karin Slaughter’s Faithless, after interviewing her and was compelled by the relationships between her core characters.
I may be older but I still have that childlike reaction that if I think I’m reading them out of duty I’ll end up using them for firewood – so my focus is on enjoyment and an open mind.
