Whenever I have been asked what my hobbies are, usually on a job application, “Reading” has always figured somewhere in the list. I can’t remember ever being asked about this in interviews, but it apparently gave an impression of someone who at least could read and, hopefully, as a result had some intellectual capability.
My reading for pleasure has, however, been sporadic. I don’t remember reading all that much at school, even though I studied English Literature – Shakespeare and Keats for ‘O’ level, but for a period after school I became obsessed with Denis Wheatley and authors like Georgette Heyer. I loved anything about the French Revolution, which we also studied for ‘O’ level and these writers filled the bill admirably. Having been brought up in a strictly Methodist home, Dennis Wheatley’s satanic novels were also very exciting as well as being informative in a subversive sort of way. I suppose it must have been during this period that I became intrigued with spiritualism and séances. I had an aunt who lived near London who was a spiritualist and used to talk to Charlie, her dead husband, and ask him to help her if she was doing a particularly hard job and she used to go somewhere in London to services from time to time. She must have been quite unusual in our family, though, as we were always given to understand that it was wrong to try and contact the dead.
After I was married, I read books which were a bit ‘heavier’, “Michel, Michel” by Robert Lewis was the fascinating story of a Jewish boy rescued from the Nazis who was raised as a Catholic. It’s easy to imagine the moral questions raised by that. “Germinal” by Emile Zola was another that raised moral and social issues surrounding the exploitation of miners and their families in France. And a third in a similar vein was “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist” by Robert Tressell, a blatantly political novel which exposes capitalism as the real source of poverty, though his workmates wouldn’t accept this. “The Bonfire of the Vanities” by Tom Wolfe, made into a film some years ago, was far superior in book form and is one brought to mind again by the greed of the sub-prime mortgage sellers which caused the credit crunch this time around.
Starting work again and looking after two young children must have hindered my reading somewhat as I don’t remember reading anything for a long time after that. No doubt I read newspapers and magazines, but I suppose I felt I was reading enough at work whilst typing psychological reports and then theological papers. I even wrote one or two contributions myself, but it was evident that my upbringing and the reading I had done in the past had influenced my interest in social responsibility and religious issues.
So, it wasn’t until about 1991 when I enrolled in the ‘Diploma in Theological and Pastoral Studies’ that I took up books again with any enthusiasm. For three years, I read nothing but theological history and treatises, some interesting, some obscure and some enlightening. Unfortunately, one might say, though that’s debatable, I also read what might be called books of a heretical bent – no pun intended! For some reason, I tended to prefer these as they challenged my preconceptions and forced me to reconsider the beliefs I had held all my life to that point. On conclusion of the course, I breathed a sigh of relief and again put books on one side whilst I worried about what I now believed and where my missing son might be.
In 1996, we set off on our year-long European adventure, but writing became more of a time-filler than reading, as I wrote my diary, letters to friends and “A Year on the Road”, my little book of theological reflections.
Reading didn’t rise to the fore again until 2004. By then, we had finished our six year stint working on camp sites, renovated our cottage at Lower Sprotborough and moved into a community which I had known intimately in my childhood and youth, but which had moved on, with lots of new housing. Most of the people I had known had either died or left the area and those who remained were strangers to me. The church provided one gateway and I took it, but it wasn’t enough so I joined a reading group at Balby Library, where I stayed for two and a half years. It was out of my area, but the one at Sprotborough was full. However, in 2005, a second group began meeting in the village and I jumped at the chance to join it.
Seven years on, we have read about seventy-five books of varying quality, some challenging, but most falling into the category of what I would describe as easy reading, meaning you can get through them in a couple of days and forget what was in them almost immediately. These offer little in the way of discussion at our monthly gatherings, though the social aspect remains enjoyable.
Apart from this, I have read dozens of books that I come across in a variety of ways. I love a good adventure, mystery or detective story, but reject all books that appear from the cover to be ‘light romance’.
Having read theology for so long, I have had my fill of that – at least for now, but am happy to choose religious novels which provide something relevant to think about. One particular book in this genre stands out. “My Name is Asher Lev” by Chaim Potok, is the moving story of a Jewish boy with a talent to paint which he feels compelled to master despite the hurt it might do to him and his people.
I have also enjoyed “Naming of Names” and “The Tulip” by Anna Pavord, fascinating books about plants.
Books about illegal drugs and prodigal children, for example “Wasted” by Mark Johnson and “ Pete Doherty: My Prodigal Son” by his mother Jacqueline, have also drawn me and encouraged me, though they provoke much sadness for wasted lives.
In more recent times, I have read books suggested by a friend: “Katherine Swynford” , mistress and later the wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, by Alison Weir; “The Big House”, the story of Sledmore in the Yorkshire Dales by Christopher Simon Sykes; and “The Inheritance: The Story of Knole and the Sackvilles” by Robert Sackville-West.
Unfortunately, the books I enjoy most and might suggest for the reading group are not ones that are available in larger numbers and so it remains for me to read them on my own and hesitantly offer them to others as worthy of their consideration.
My latest historical batch includes titles such as, “The Battle: A New History of the Battle of Waterloo” by Alessandro Barbero and John Cullen, which satisfied my interest in the Napoleonic War; “The Time Travellers Guide to Mediaeval England” a fantastic journey into the 14th century, by Ian Mortimer, “Foreign Devils on the Silk Road” describing the adventurers of the early 20th century who battled the deserts and all sorts of hardships to bring home the treasures of the east, only to be castigated at the end of their lives by their colleagues, by Peter Hopkirk and “We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families”, the horrific story of Rwanda’s genocide in 1994, by Philip Gourevitch.
I found all of these gripping stories of real events to be both well-written, well-told and worthy of much wider consumption than is possible with so few copies on the shelves of libraries available for reading groups.
As a member of a writing group, I hesitate to say that books are being dumbed down, as any reading is better than none, but it’s sad to think that those which uplift and inform in an intelligent, well-written way get the poorer deal.
Liz Reeve
January 2012
