Book Review: "Bookworm" by Lucy Mangan

I love books about reading, as you might know. For example, recently I read a book called A Reader on Reading by Alberto Manguel and it was sublime as the entire text had the underlining allusion to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland loud and clear throughout. I also loved the read the book Ex Libris: 100 Books to Read and Reread by Michiko Kakutani. A book with a bunch of great books within, some of which cannot go through life without being reread - that is just the way those books are.

Lucy Mangan's book entitled Bookworm is a book about childhood reading and how she really sunk her teeth into books as a young girl. She goes through the course of her life in various texts, talking about not only her experiences with the books but filling us in on an autobiographical level. The book is a masterpiece of reading which keeps us adults nostalgic for our own childhood books. I personally thought about my times with J.M Barrie's Peter Pan and Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn which I had illustrated versions of and a simplified version of the latter. Lucy Mangan allows the reader to get to know her whilst also losing themselves in their own childhood books.

When she introduces the whole idea of reading, Lucy Mangan is careful not to skip out on the details. It is clear that this book is written for people like herself, people like you and me. The demographic of people who have been reading their entire lives and sit there at night thinking about the books that made us during our childhood. She explains:

The philosopher and psychologist Riccardo Manzotti describes the process of reading and rereading as creating both locks and keys with which to open them; it shows you an area of life you didn't even know was there and, almost simultaneously, starts to give you the tools with which to decipher it.

An incredible way to define the very point of this book - childhood exploration into a life or an aspect of life that was previously unknown. This is the draw of the book for the demographic it is created for.

She makes these incredible comments about various authors (not to mention comparing her own copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar to her father's much more elaborate copy from when he was a child). She comments on the authors' natures and how she sees them as writers and creators of worlds. Here she is responding to the works and words of author Enid Blyton:

Blyton is not demanding. She is not an expander of minds like any one of the imaginatively and linguistically gifted authors already mentioned or still to be discussed. Her great gift lies in proving beyond doubt to children that reading can be fun, and reliably so.

She seems to be absolutely correct for those that have read and remember reading Enid Blyton's works growing up - the very works themselves are an enjoyable adventure and all thanks to the author who was convincing us that reading was meant to be enjoyed.

In conclusion, whether she is writing about the point and purpose of reading a book, commenting on an author's works and responsibilities to the reader, or even telling us the story of her growing up in a world filled with books and reading culture - I think we can agree that this book really takes the reader back to their own childhood. Especially when their childhood, like ours, was filled with books. My favourite line out of the whole book is something I connected with twenty years' ago and something I still connect with now: the bookworm’s prime directive: any book is better than no book.