Lucy ManganRezensionen

I can't actually review this book dispassionately. Obviously Lucy Mangan wrote it for me. This particular bookworm is only a little older than my eldest child. Her mother is only a little older than me. As a child, her reading choices were my reading choices (apart from Enid Blyton. I wasn't allowed to read her books, and on odd occasions that I came across one, I saw no reason to disobey my mother's wishes. What bilge). And as she was a child of the 80s, her reading choices were my children's reading choices: or mine, in their early years, obviously. And what riches there were to mine!

This book is quite simply a nostalgic memory fest of all the books, so many of them now classics, that enriched both our childhoods - and in my case, the early motherhood years as well. The true friends and teachers that books become for the bookish child is so well celebrated here. They give the lie to a certain grandson's infamous exclamation last year - 'Books? They're so 1950s!' You're wrong Alex. A well-loved book is a friend forever.

The author was funny, but the spoilers, my goodness! There were virtually no warnings. Why?! Why do readers spoil books for other readers?

At about 54%, the author mentions that she's going to talk about [b:Anne of Green Gables|8127|Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)|L.M. Montgomery|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1615094578l/8127._SY75_.jpg|3464264]. I haven't finished that series yet, and I don't want to read the spoilers that are apparently inevitable with Mangan.

I'm so disappointed.

Fun to read, and re-visit old favourites. But - no Diana Wynne Jones? No Margaret Mahy?

I guess this is a biblio-memoir. I enjoyed a trip down memory lane as many of the books the author read and loved (or in some cases didn't) as a child mirrored my own childhood reading. There were authors I disagreed on (Dr Seuss) and those I agreed on (Blyton) but overall it was fun to be reminded of them. I was probably less interested in the authors own family story, and in the bits about books I wasn't familiar with.

This book is the literary equivalent of those visual illusions that psychologists try to hang meaning on depending on what you see - like the one that's either an old woman or a candlestick. Or is it an old woman / young woman? Anyway, whatever, you know what I mean.

As someone who is voluntarily childless, this book was a hilarious - and I mean laugh-out-loud hilarious - justification that my decision to stick with the furry and feathered walks of life, rather than replicating my own DNA, was the right decision for me (and MT, who came to the same decision long before we met). Her kids are hysterical, but they're hard work and are constantly opening up avenues of conversation that I'd hurt myself to avoid having. Mangen's descriptions of child birth should be required reading in human development classes as psychological birth control. I was made to be an Aunt.

There was another - unintended, I'm certain - consequence this book had for me, one that is again tied, I'm equally certain, to our choice to stick with non-human family members, and that's the lack of suppressed rage that lies as an undercurrent in Liz and Richard's marriage, that I recognise in the marriages of my friends with children. It's not all chocolates and roses here at chez zoo by a long shot, but without the stress and pressure of making new humans that will hopefully treat the world better than we have, MT and I have experienced more fun than festering resentment. Of course, I also recognise the near-miracle that he's one of the 1 in 100,000 men who seem to have been raised without the ingrained gender biases and learned helplessness most are saddled with when it comes to matters of home keeping. Still, the book really gave me a few moments of "do you really appreciate how lucky you are? really, truly?", which I think constitutes healthy self-reflection.

Putting all that aside, I have to figure out how to get my sister-in-law to read this, because, as the mother of 2, she will appreciate this book for all the opposite reasons: because Lucy Mangen wrote her truth, and she will laugh as she nods her neck stiff in righteous agreement of the trials and tribulations of an all-human family of 4.

I read so much of this out loud to MT (honestly, it's almost been a nightly story-time around here lately) that he actually insisted I rate this 4.5 stars. As he said, it made us both laugh out loud and the writing was excellent (which gives you an indication of how much I read out loud; he was able to judge the quality of the writing). I'd been thinking more 4 stars, but since he put up with all the reading out loud, I acquiesced.

If you need a laugh, you won't go wrong with this one.½

I so thoroughly enjoyed Lucy Mangan's writing in Bookworm that I wanted to try some of her other titles. I ordered two of them, and this one was the first to arrive.

A collection of essays/columns written for The Guardian that covers a multitude of topics, My Family and Other Disasters easily met and exceeded my expectations. I hoovered these down, laughing and often - very often - reading parts aloud to MT; her writing is so good he rarely even minded when I did.

This is a woman who does not hold back her inner misanthrope; she lets it rip and in the process tears a strip off anyone and anything she considers irrational or stupid. I might have a tiny book crush on her, but only because I agree with her about most all of it, and she makes me laugh.

Mangan writes for the UK Guardian so there's a highly British slant to most of her essays, but many of her topics cross the international barriers - especially the essays pertaining to television; I don't watch TV, but the essays are old enough to refer to the shows that aired when I did. Saying that, they were also the essays I enjoyed the least, although I whole-heartedly agree with her views on Seinfeld.

All up, a delightful collection.½

Were you a bookworm as a kid? I was. I was even voted "Class Bookworm" in 7th grade - a category they made up just for me. I was the kid with the book inside the text book during school lectures. So when I saw this a few years ago, I thought ... maybe. As much as I enjoy most books about books, I figured the title was likely to be an overstatement and I'd be reading a sedate, literary criticism of childhood books. The front flap reinforced this suspicion. Which is why it sat on my shelves for so long.

Oh, how wrong - and kinda right - I was. Lucy Mangan is a true bookworm; back in the day, she'd have given me a run for the title and the award. She was also way better read than I was, so there is some lit criticism here, but it's fabulous lit criticism; she's hilarious and she's rational and she's so very real.

On Enid Blyton:

I can barely bring myself to talk about my Enid Blyton.

Like generations of children before me,
and like generations since (she still sells over 8 million
copies a year around the world) I fell head over heels in
love. No, not love - it was an obsession, an addiction. It
was wonderful.

It was an older girl that got me into the stuff. Becky-
next- door lent me her copy of something called Five on a
Secret Trail. It was a floppy, late 1970s Knight Books
edition with, I believe, the original 1950’s illustrations
inside. I read it. It was good. Very good. I enjoyed it. I
enjoyed it very much. I asked Becky if she had any more.
She did. It was called Five Run Away Together. I read it. It
was good. Very good. Possibly even better than Five on
a Secret Trail. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it very much. I
noticed it had a number '3' on the spine. Five on a Secret
Trail had a '15’. What did that mean? I decided to look for
clues. Even without a loyal canine companion to help me,
it didn't take long. The endpapers carried a
list. Apparently Enid Blyton had written twenty-one
books! What excellent news! What riches! What vital.
absolutely essential riches!

I took the news and the list to my parents. I'm going
to need all of these,' I said, gently.

And so it began.

And on C.S. Lewis' Narnia series being a Christian allegory:

The tale of Lucy Pevensie discovering the secret
world beyond the wardrobe door is a story about
courage, loyalty, generosity, sacrifice and nobility versus
greed, conceit, arrogance and betrayal. You can call the
former Christian virtues, or you can just call them
virtues, let the kids concentrate on the self-renewing
Turkish delight, magically unerring bows and hybrid
man-beasts and relax.

Reading this, I feel like I missed out on something amazing by not living down the road from Lucy. I suspect we'd have had a lot of fun swapping books and comparing notes. But it was a joy to read her memoirs now and in so doing take a trip down the memory lane of my own reading.

Mangan primarily recounts her childhood reading in a fun and often funny style, but she also dips lightly into the historical aspects of Children's literature here and there, when the subject matter seems to call for it - a specific genre, or the roots of illustrations. These bits are less engaging, more straightforward, and in context with the whole, makes the pace drag a tiny bit when you get to them. They're interesting, but they're not entertaining.

Because Mangan's writing style is very conversational, the sentences that include many clauses and often long parentheticals can sometimes be hard to follow. This was probably my only criticism - not that I didn't enjoy the style, because I absolutely did - it's just once or twice, by the time the sentence ended, I had forgotten how it began.

Admittedly, a large number of the books that Lucy Mangan covers are books unknown to me. I expected this because she was growing up in London, and I was growing up in tiny town Florida. But I was delighted at how often our book titles did converge, and how many titles that, even if I didn't read them, I was familiar enough with to easily follow along.

The author has written a few other books, and I enjoyed this one so much, that I'm interested to discover what they're about and see about getting my hands on one or two.½

An entertaining memoir about one woman's passion for books, focussing almost exclusively on the adventure of reading in childhood. This was a relatively fun read, but suffered from the obvious shortcoming of such summary works, in that no deeper analysis of the books could be attempted without running the risk of spoiling the story. As such, this is more like a deeply annotated list of worthwhile reading, and I will be sure to go through the bibliography at the end in fine detail since my daughters are both now at the age for independent reading.

Debut novel tin the format of a diary, in the style of Adrian Mole and Bridget Jones. A year in the life of Liz, a charity worker turning 40, her barrister husband and two primary school kids who lives in south London suburbia. She works part time and with days working from home for a charity, and deals with regular domestic crises, the school parent teacher association and news from her friends. Quite funny as readers of Lucy Mangan's journalism and non fiction work might expect, not really much escapism for middle aged parents but lots to identify with. I can relate to many of Liz's thoughts. and I enjoyed it.

Thanks to Netgalley for the digital egalley for review.

This was OK. I suspect the author is slightly younger than me so her books I read as a child are quite different to mine.

It is easy to spot a bookworm at a party, they are looking for the first opportunity to slide off to a quiet room or a comfortable seat and fish their book out of their bag where they can immerse themselves in the latest fictional creations. It is not recommended to disturb them as this could be detrimental to your health, just to leave drinks in the close vicinity. And maybe some snacks.

I took the news and the list to my parents. 'I'm going to need all of these,' I said gently

Lucy Mangan is a complete bookworm and has been for as long as she remembers. For her, the worlds that books opened up were places of adventure and full of magic or a place of safe haven where real life seldom ventured. If she had to go out it was invariably to the library or the bookshop to acquire more reading material. They were a source of information too, a way of learning how different people reacted to different situations. The more that she read, the more that she wanted to read further; the discovery of a first book in a series would be a moment of joy as another seam of stories would be mined. As well as books for birthdays, her dad generously provided books on an almost weekly basis, introducing new authors to her. It seems like she hasn't got rid of many of these either as she has 10,000 books, yes TEN THOUSAND books at home!

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one. ― George R.R. Martin

I wasn't a complete bookworm as a child like Lucy was, I read a fair amount as a child, but unlike her, did venture outside to play on bikes and climb trees. However, reading books like this means that I can trawl my memories of the books that formed a part of my formative reading experience. I had some overlap with Lucy's reading, Blyton and CS Lewis to name but two of the authors that we have both have read. I remember being forced to read some dire books at school, but memories of others came like Swallows & Amazons, Stig of the Dump, the Willard Price Adventure books, Adrian Mole and even the Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone books that began with the Warlock of Firetop Mountain.

All of my reminisces about childhood books aside, if you're a book lover of any form then you will almost certainly get something from this book and that alone makes it worth reading. Do though be warned there are spoilers for some of the books she talks about and hopefully, you will look fondly back on the books of your childhood too. 3.5 stars.

Loved it! Only the lack of a proper index stopped me giving it 5 stars. More here: http://annabookbel.net/in-short-some-recent-reads½

The back cover of Bookworm has a blurb by Jacqueline Wilson that includes the phrase “gloriously opinionated”. It is highly apt. Bookworms of all kinds have strong opinions about the books that shaped them, and Lucy Mangan is no exception. Being somewhat familiar with many of the books she read, I found it interesting to read how her experiences matched (or didn’t match) mine. Inevitably, there were some we differed on, and we made the leap to adult fiction at different times (I think I started at 8 or 9, with Agatha Christie; many of the teen books she talked about I didn’t bother with). But overall I enjoyed this and related a lot to the young Lucy’s mindset.

The book also includes a list at the end with all of the books she discussed in each chapter. Very handy for stocking your own library if you so choose.

This is recommended for people who like to chat about books they’ve loved and revisit them from a different stage of life.

I think you need to have been a childhood reader, or now love children’s literature to enjoy this book. Luckily for me I tick both boxes and as such found this a delight to read.

Mangan takes a chronological approach, starting pretty much at birth and finishing in her teenage years. Her style is informal and witty – it feels as though a good friend is talking to you. Whilst she shares a fair amount of family history, often in a way that had me laughing out loud the star of the show here are the books she escaped into. On the books themselves she provides a careful mix of nostalgic recollections, analysis and in some instances historical context so that each chapter is more than a retelling of the story.

I found the back stories to some of my favourites fascinating (for example the who and wherefore of the writing of the Secret Garden) and mentally cheered when I found references to books I had forgotten I loved (Topsy & Tim for example, although I was shaken to find this is now a children’s tv show!) or opinions I shared (Mangan’s thoughts on Laurie in Little Women, the occasionally problematic nature of some of Blyton’s work).

I think this will most appeal to people who have a significant overlap with Mangan’s chosen favourites but even where I did not (never really understood the fascination with pony books for example) there is still plenty to enjoy. The inclusion of a detailed book list at the end is both inspired and likely to be expensive.

An ARC from netgalley.

One of those books about books that involved a lot of head nodding, both about the books and about growing up a reader in a house with siblings who Did Not Get It! Fun. Mangan talks about the finegrain detail of book memories, from which teacher read which book aloud in school to the books stocked in the local library. She also includes detail about children's book origins, although I suspect most of this will not be news to those professionally involved, was interesting to me.

Mangan has spent years writing (very funny) columns and I think in places it shows here - she goes for the joke at a pace, when perhaps it isn't always needed when reading chapter by chapter instead of week by week. But I would look for my own copy of this, as it's a lovely trip down memory lane. She even includes The Summer of My German Soldier a book that broke my heart when I was about 12.

I really like that she includes a list of all the books referenced at the end, very handy.

A collection of columns from 'The Guardian' from the past few years, organised into five broad categories.

Some of the columns are amusing (although unfortunately the best lines are quoted in the introduction, rather dimming the humour when read in context later on). Some of them even made me feel a tug of kinship with the author. And others were trite, rather pointless and silly. Possibly this is inherent in having to produce a regular column, since inspiration won't strike every day.

The writing is very good - Mangan has a distinctive style and some excellent turns of phrase. Not a book to sit down and read over a few days, but enjoyable to dip into now and again. The kind of book to leave around for visitors, perhaps.