These three books, read in this order have enlightened, intrigued and deepened my understanding of why I read and why I read books in a material format rather than online. I, sadly, have lots of friends who have stopped buying books as they don’t know what to do with them and no longer have space to keep them. And it is also, depressingly true, that it has become quite difficult to unload unwanted books anywhere – schools will not take them, Oxfam shops are full to the brim – so I am eternally grateful to the Annual Booksale at St John’s Wood Church, NW8 7NE which is about to take place – Saturday and Sunday 18th & 19th May – as they accept boxes of books gratefully, and apparently they are snapped up eagerly, so if you can go – get there early!
The Book Makers has been widely and positively reviewed. Each chapter concentrates upon one aspect and mainly one or two remarkable people involved in book making. Printing, typesetting, papermaking, binding and everything in between the pages. It is a most fascinating and lively delve into the materiality of the book. Adam Smyth has used the more shadowy people in the trade, so not William Caxton but William de Worde, not John Baskerville but his wife, Sarah Eaves. And I thought I knew a lot about Little Gidding, until I read this.
The Book Forger is another kettle of fish all together. A detective story of the most acute and interesting sort. Two young men go in search of fake documents, one only to start with, but horrifyingly more and more come to light. Joseph Hone has deliberately written this as a detective novel, and one of the two men, Henry Graham Pollard, has a keen interest in detective fiction – we meet several luminaries of the early detective novelists, Dorothy L Sayers for one. But this is not a novel. A great connoisseur, biliophile and member of the Roxburghe Club, highly respected and revered in such august establishments as The British Museum, the Browning Society, the Swinburne Society and other bookselling and buying establishments is, it turns out, not simply a massive forger, but also a thief.
On the other hand, Reading Lessons is about teaching English Literature to secondary school students. Carol Atherton has taught for three decades in Lincolnshire. Her book talks about aspects of the curriculum, all seen through some classic novels, poems and plays and the things that we can learn from reading and teaching at a time when the creative arts are under considerable stress. She looks beyond the text to what the books can teach us and our children about life and living – move aside all those Williams (Blake, Wordsworth and Shakespeare) and let the light in for Maya Angelou, Malorie Blackman, Barry Hines et al. I think every parent should read this, not just a few teachers.
deborahjs 