AD Hartley

Someone said to me recently, "Oh, I don't re-read books". In fact I know a few people who feel the same, though I'm certainly not one of them. I can understand where they are coming from. In many ways you will never be able to re-read a book and have it surprise and delight as much as it did on the first read. The magic will always be slightly diluted by fore-knowledge of what's coming, no matter how much you love the book. Others will point out that with so many books to read, re-reading leaves less time for new ones. Similarly, with so many entertainment and time killing activities available to us in the 21st century, time available to devote to reading is so limited it makes no sense to return to something you have already read. These are good points and I can't argue against them. Time constraints and an expanding TBR list will always put pressure on your next choice of book and I do try to go for a new one most of the time. But occasionally, just ...

At the end of last week I had decided to follow up two recent posts about the books I remember reading as a child  and the books I studied at school , with a third post looking at some of the books I chose to read as a young adult and how that shaped my reading from then on.  Almost certainly that post, had I written it, would have featured the books of Terry Pratchett quite heavily, because there was no doubt that at the age of 15 Terry was my favourite author. More so than even Tolkien , Douglas Adams , Raymond E Feist , Grant Naylor , Michael Crichton  and whoever else I was reading at the time. But as I was clambering into bed that night thinking about what I would write in the morning, I quickly scanned the news on my phone and my heart sank. Although I knew Sir Terry had been seriously ill with a form of early onset Alzheimer's for some time, it came as quite a shock to read about his passing on the BBC. The following day I was pretty me...