Thinking about the point of Book Week made me think about reading, and sparked a mental journey through my own book and literature memories:
being read to in bed, listening from my playpen to my grandmother reciting Evgeniy Onegin while she sewed her way through thousands of shower caps for her boss, reading to anyone who would listen as a young girl waiting for her mother’s perm to be done at the hairdresser’s (Cornelius) in Camberwell, re-reading my favourite books and poring over the illustrations, not understanding why a girl in my primary school class was forbidden to read by her mother, dreaming of being an author, choosing all literature subjects in different languages at university, learning languages to read the literature, reading to my children, translating an English picture book into Russian to my toddler while simultaneously watching Neighbours (go figure), deriving so much pleasure from buying all the old classics for my first child before he was conceived, rediscovering these books with him, listening to children’s audio books in the car, passionately discussing wonderful books with students as an English teacher and trying to ‘convert’ the unbelievers , delving deeper and deeper into literature with students, challenging students and making them think, watching students come into the library to ask impatiently if their favourite book had been returned …
What are your literature memories?
