In his wonderful book On Writing, Stephen King gives the following advice:

‘If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others:  read a lot and write a lot.  There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.’

Well that’s a relief then.  The OCD-like inability to pass a bookshop, the teetering piles of books ‘to be read’ … it seems that’s all perfectly normal behaviour for aspiring writers.  With this ‘official’ permission granted, we thought it might be interesting to share our favourite reads.  Juliet Foster sets the ball rolling with her insights into a book which, as luck would have it, concerns the subject of being a book lover.

Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman

This is a book written for bibliophiles.  Anne Fadiman is an American writer who has included eighteen of her essays in this little book.  As these are essays you can dip in and out at will.  I found it fun and interesting to discover how other people’s lives are enhanced by the reading and ownership of books.  I particularly related to and loved the first essay ‘Marrying Libraries’.  In fact one can identify with much of her writing and I shall dip into Ex Libris again and again.

Allen Lane (1999) ISBN 0713993154, Penguin (2000) ISBN 0140283706

Juliet Foster