No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy: Memoirs of a Working-Class Reader

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Reading this memoir is to realise there is no better tool for social mobility than a book … lovely”

I am amazed at the variety, although my own TBRs have multiplied to take in the bedside and now the desk where books to be reviewed will languish. And the floor beside the desk where research books reside. But how much fun to have a front seat into other people’s reading habits. Let me allow Hodkinson to have the last word on his own mania: I liked No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy a lot. Mark Hodkinson writes very engagingly throughout and I found the whole thing very enjoyable. I'm A Celeb's viewers SLAM 'insensitive' Nella Rose after she tells ADHD sufferer Sam Thompson to 'calm down': 'Educate yourself!'Gisele Bundchen showcases her toned tummy as she and rumored boyfriend Joaquim Valente enjoy Costa Rica getaway with her children In No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy I saw reflected my own experience of growing up in an almost bookless household. Hodkinson's imagery and sparks of comedy make it an enjoyable read, and his Northern, gravelly narration adds to its realism. For example, this description a school rubgy lesson in chapter four: Growing up a working-class lad during the 1970s and 1980s was for most of his peers a book free experience. e liked the same music as they did, but there was something about the magic of the worlds contained in a book that he fell for completely. He was quite unusual in trying to find books in out of way places and came across a lot of characters as he slowly began to read and acquire books.

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Demi Moore leaves yoga class after ex Bruce Willis spotted driving around town amid his battle with dementia White Lotus stars Meghann Fahy and Leo Woodall kept romance private over fears they would 'disrupt the show' So, not just a book memoir, but a fine, enjoyable and informative read all round. Warmly recommended. Around that time, in my thirties, was probably when I began to accumulate books at a rate considerably greater than my capacity to read them. Life, much as we try to keep it at arm’s length or delude ourselves that it falls under our dominion, often ‘blindsides you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday’. The big stuff – bereavement, divorce, illness, heartbreak, a global pandemic – crashes randomly before us, splat, and reading becomes impossible with a head and heart weighed with pain and worry and regret. And the good stuff can impact our reading, too: a new relationship, an urge to travel, an exciting project or an irresistible call for reinvention of self.Hodkinson manages to discuss books with no element of showing off or of demonstrating how well read he is, which is a relief. Indeed, later he has some trenchant and, I think, accurate criticisms of the way that a privileged elite still determine what is meant by “well read” and of how that same privileged elite dominates the publishing industry and the “literary” world. It helps you thrive from the inside out!': Meet the women who say this supplement is the secret to feeling fabulous in their 50s and 60s This is a book about the north; it is also about publishing, writing and music, but it transcends its subjects and meets the criterion Hodkinson sets out in his preface: “The best books, the same as the best days, skitter on the breeze. They go their own way”’ No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy is a great book that any lifelong reader will probably relate to. There are loads of similarities with my own story, and inevitably loads of differences too. Mark is roughly the same age as me and, like anyone of our age, our lives are composed of a giant dichotomy separated by the appearance of mass-participation Internet in the middle of it. I can so relate to the isolation of the early years. Mark was perhaps more isolated than me, because of his school and family home, but it's poignant recalling just how hard it was to find out anything and things like discovering great books like Catcher In The Rye more or less by accident just happened from time to time. Younger people just will not get that bit. Another example is when Mark describes a visit to his friend's house and perceives the difference to his own:

I'm A Celebrity's Nella Rose insists she andFred Sirieix are pals again after sheFUMED at First Dates star for 'disrespectful' jibe 'about her late dad' Reading this memoir is to realise there is no better tool for social mobility than a book . . . lovely’ Sir Rod Stewart flashes the middle finger at the Celtic v Motherwell football match after he is booed byThe Green Brigade Allen Lane, co-founder of Penguin Books, fully believed in the existence of ‘a vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price’. Hodkinson got to review amateur dramatics and to cover inquests and council meetings. Once there was a scoop about a chip pan fire.

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