Description

A love letter to the joys of childhood reading from Wonderland to Narnia.

When Lucy Mangan was little, stories were everything. They opened up new worlds and cast light on all the complexities she encountered in this one.

She was whisked away to Narnia – and Kirrin Island – and Wonderland. She ventured down rabbit holes and womble burrows into midnight gardens and chocolate factories. She wandered the countryside with Milly-Molly-Mandy, and played by the tracks with the Railway Children. With Charlotte’s Web she discovered Death and with Judy Blume it was Boys. No wonder she only left the house for her weekly trip to the library or to spend her pocket money on amassing her own at home.

In Bookworm, Lucy revisits her childhood reading with wit, love and gratitude. She relives our best-beloved books, their extraordinary creators, and looks at the thousand subtle ways they shape our lives. She also disinters a few forgotten treasures to inspire the next generation of bookworms and set them on their way.

Lucy brings the favourite characters of our collective childhoods back to life – prompting endless re-readings, rediscoveries, and, inevitably, fierce debate – and brilliantly uses them to tell her own story, that of a born, and unrepentant, bookworm.

‘Passionate, witty, informed, and gloriously opinionated’ Jacqueline Wilson author of The Story of Tracy Beaker

Publisher Review

An enchanting, nostalgic, comfort read * Mail on Sunday * Beautifully narrated, Bookworm brings the favourite characters of our collective childhoods back to life and brilliantly uses them to tell her own story * Psychologies * Lucy Mangan's funny, warm Bookworm is personal and universal in the way that the very best books are -- Aliya White * Den of Geek, **Books of the Year** * In Lucy Mangan's Bookworm...childhood books are brought vividly to life, as are the remembered pleasures of first encountering them -- Harriet Baker * Times Literary Supplement * If you're a book lover of any form then you will almost certainly get something from this book... you will look fondly back on the books of your childhood too -- Paul Cheney * Nudge * [W]ise and witty... all the time Mangan has the ability to be ceaselessly and apparently effortlessly funny * Books For Keeps * A love letter to the books we all read as children. -- Mike Gayle * Metro * ... like a heated but enjoyable discussion with a best friend bookworm. -- Jacqueline Wilson * The Week * Entertaining and hugely engaging... An entirely inspiring read. -- Eithne Farry * Sunday Express * Joyful and heart-warming. * Muddy Stilettos * Enchanting. -- Ysenda Maxton Graham * Spectator * Lucy Mangan's passionate, amusing and nostalgic reflection upon her favourite children's books deserves to become as much of a classic as the novels she revisits. -- Charlotte Heathcote * Sunday Express * A warm, witty story about stories and the way they shape us. -- Lucy Brookes * CultureWhisper * Bookworm is for anyone who longed to be on Kirrin Island with the Famous Five, slip through a back of a wardrobe into Narnia or will always think fondly of the penis named Ralph in Judy Blume's Forever * Red Magazine * Funny and engaging. -- Sue Barraclough * Irish News * The Guardian columnist has composed an enthusiastic love letter to childhood reading, and the classic books that have shaped many young lives, as well as providing a resource and guide on how to build a children's library * Guardian * Funny, nostalgic and super-interesting... Warm, witty and a must-read for every bookworm. * The Sun * Deft, warm and beautifully balanced. Made me smile. Made me glow. Made me think again and again. * Jason Hazeley, co-author of the adult Ladybird series * A witty and thorough history of reading for children from the 17th century to the present day. Fiercely unsentimental and often funny, it's a memoir that will strike a ringing chord with anyone who spent most of their childhood glued to a book. * Irish Times * Lucy Mangan's passionate, amusing and nostalgic reflection upon her favourite children's books deserves to become as much of a classic as the novels she revisits. * Sunday Express * Anyone who has ever preferred books to life will recognise Lucy Mangan as a kindred spirit. Her moving, funny, honest and superbly-written memoir about how childhood reading shapes our personalities, memories and chances could not be more timely or more needed in an age of library closures, embattled Humanities teaching and Philistinism. * Amanda Craig * To read Lucy Mangan's memoir of growing up bookish is to be taken back to a time in life when reading wasn't merely a gentle pleasure or mild obligation but an activity as essential as breathing. * Guardian * Lucy Mangan has enough comic energy to power the National Grid... We need this new memoir about her childhood of being a bookworm. It's enchanting. * The Spectator * What Mangan does brilliantly is express the experience of reading and articulate the emotional connections we make with stories. She understands how books become entwined in our lives and help us make sense of the world. You don't need to have enjoyed the same books as she has to recognise the pure, life-affirming joy of reading that Bookworm celebrates so eloquently. * The Observer * A wonderful romp through the pages of childhood, illuminated by wisdom, humour and enthusiasm. * Bernard Cornwell * Artfully evokes that particular magic of reading as a child... Deliciously unrepentant, Mangan's Bookworm makes a timely case not just for how vital reading is, but also for rereading books as a child, and how reading remains consoling, fortifying and, sometimes, magical. * The Sunday Times * A delicously nostalgic treat that will make you want to pull out all those old favourites again * Good Housekeeping * A book for people who love books, by a person who loves books. Bookworms unite (or just sit in our separate corners and read!) * Stylist * THE most wonderful, funny, clever, charming, evocative book. * India Knight * I felt like this was written just for me, and I think everyone will feel this way -- Jenny Colgan Passionate, witty, informed, and gloriously opinionated -- Jacqueline Wilson