I bought Scribbles on Mother's Day and a quick scan in the car on the way home (I wasn't driving). quickly established it was one I was going to love.
Each chapter is about a different element of reading, from over ones shoulder, to the bookmarks we use, to the way we enthuse about a certain book to anyone who will listen. It's easy to read and is slim despite being a hardback.
How different to the previous slim hard back - Women and Power I recently read. It just goes to show it doesn't matter how long a book (Vanity Fair v Bleak House) or how slim a book is, it's the content that counts and this was brimming with it.
I could sit here and re-type practically the whole book pointing out quotes that I loved or sections that resonated. Gray just knows what it is like to read and be obsessed by reading. I don't think at the start I could have set down on paper 50 different things about books and reading styles yet I found a little bit of myself in nearly every chapter. I have given up reading a book mid way through (a relative new thing for me granted), I've read in a tent and lost an afternoon to the re-organising of bookshelves. Gray made me smile, he made me laugh and at times his writing was exquisite:
"The back cover is consulted only after the front has been favourably judged. It hides, often with its face to the wall like a naughty schoolchild, until flipped over in someone's hands, their interest piqued. The front cover is eye-contact, the back a first conversation."
A true love letter to everything book. I highly recommend it.
If you like books about books then you may also like The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell, currently sitting at number 12 on my to read list.
Each chapter is about a different element of reading, from over ones shoulder, to the bookmarks we use, to the way we enthuse about a certain book to anyone who will listen. It's easy to read and is slim despite being a hardback.
How different to the previous slim hard back - Women and Power I recently read. It just goes to show it doesn't matter how long a book (Vanity Fair v Bleak House) or how slim a book is, it's the content that counts and this was brimming with it.
I could sit here and re-type practically the whole book pointing out quotes that I loved or sections that resonated. Gray just knows what it is like to read and be obsessed by reading. I don't think at the start I could have set down on paper 50 different things about books and reading styles yet I found a little bit of myself in nearly every chapter. I have given up reading a book mid way through (a relative new thing for me granted), I've read in a tent and lost an afternoon to the re-organising of bookshelves. Gray made me smile, he made me laugh and at times his writing was exquisite:
"The back cover is consulted only after the front has been favourably judged. It hides, often with its face to the wall like a naughty schoolchild, until flipped over in someone's hands, their interest piqued. The front cover is eye-contact, the back a first conversation."
A true love letter to everything book. I highly recommend it.
If you like books about books then you may also like The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell, currently sitting at number 12 on my to read list.
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