Blog At Bedtime
- 1 Mar 07, 11:54 PM
A blog is a fine thing, but as World Book Day draws to a close I must admit that I much prefer to take a good novel to bed, rather than a computer. And books are undoubtedly my favourite bedtime companions. In a way you can think of them almost as people. With some books, even as you turn back the cover and scan the first page, you sense you¡¯re about to embark on a wild and exciting adventure. Others are like old friends, comfortable and familiar as your favourite slippers.
When I was growing up my dad would to take my brother and I to the library every Saturday and it was an almost religious experience, walking through the hushed stacks in reverential silence, carefully lifting down the brightly coloured volumes from the shelves of the children¡¯s section and breathing in that special musty smell, familiar to book lovers everywhere. It was there that I first met ¡®Jane Eyre¡¯ and it was love at first sight.
I was about 11 or 12, a child with a wildly vivid imagination and a great sense of the dramatic. Of course I was instantly hooked on a tale that had everything from mistreated orphans to a mad wife in the attic and suddenly the only life that was real was to me was the one at Thornfield. I couldn¡¯t wait to get home from school every day to find out what happened next and this is the first book I ever stayed up all night to finish.
Since then there have been hundreds of books to keep me from a good night¡¯s sleep. Sebastian Faulk¡¯s ¡®Birdsong¡¯, Louis de Berniere¡¯s ¡®Captain Corelli¡¯s Mandolin¡¯, Donna Tartt¡¯s ¡®Secret History¡¯¡.I could stay up all night just writing the list.
Tonight I¡¯m off to bed with film critic Antonia Quirke¡¯s ¡®Madame Depardieu and the Beautiful Strangers¡¯. It¡¯s a great read, real, witty, autobiographical, and an absolute treat if you¡¯re a big fan of the big screen. I¡¯m interviewing her Friday evening on Artsextra so I guess that, yet again, I¡¯ll be up to the wee small hours finishing a book. I can¡¯t wait. So sleep tight and happy reading.
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