A review by gilljames
The Child That Books Built: A Life in Reading by Francis Spufford

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.0

 

When someone mentioned this book a few days  ago I was surprised I couldn’t  find it either on my book shelf or in my Kindle collection. Surely  I’d read it? Apparently not. It was all completely new to me. Yet I have known of this work for a long time and always considered it important. 

Francis Spufford writes in a very engaging prose. I actually enjoyed reading his text and being reminded of some of the texts I’d also enjoyed and studied either as a child or an adult who has an interest in children’s literature. 

Yet I was somewhat disappointed. I didn’t learn anything I hadn’t known before. It didn’t really do what the title suggested. I wanted at least to know how books had built one person and perhaps even unlock the secret of why we read books. 

Although I enjoyed the prose I was a little alarmed to find paragraphs stretching over one page and in some cases even two. Might that make it less enjoyable for some readers?