Lucy Mangan writes passionately about how books and reading shaped her childhood. She provides plenty of historical background and context to her personal survey of children's literature. Her thoughts on how we read as children are very relatable and encourage the reader to reminisce about their own favourites as well as to discover some new ones.

There were many things I loved about this book. Lucy Mangan and I seem to have shared a very similar bookshelf in our childhoods, so I identified with a lot of the feelings and comments she had about books. That led to lots of happy reminiscing about books, and the phases I went through in my reading. I also worked my way through the children's library, or saved up slowly and carefully for books from the book club at school. I also could find myself utterly lost in books, transported as I read, far away from the world.

I wasn't a loner, however, and although books were a precious escape, and time filler, since I was an only child, I also still gloried in being around real people. So I sometimes felt that although it isn't bad to be such an avid reader, that also having a life outside of books is something to be encouraged! I did, at times, feel frustrated with this aspect of the book, that glorified reading to the exclusion of all-else. I also worried about her obsession in having a bookworm as a child...he sounded like he was turning out to be pretty normal though, much to her disappointment!

I struggled a lot with the formatting in the Kindle version I read. I did get it as an ARC from Netgalley, so hopefully it's an issue that can be fixed. Whenever there were extra asides from the author, or further notes about something, perhaps as a footnote, it became impossible to read as the two strands (the main text, and the aside) were jumbled together on the page, so you never knew which bit you were reading and would turn from one page onto another with nothing making sense! This was a technical fault, obviously, but then I also began to feel it was a fault in the writing style too because why on earth did the author need to keep adding in all these extra bits that were proving so hard to follow and keep track of?!

It was nice to look back over childhood favourites, and the parts I enjoyed the most were where we found out a little more about the authors & the historical background around some of the books. I think personally I would have preferred more of that, and less bracketed/footnoted interjections from the author.

I lOVE this book! I can thoroughly recommend it to everyone interested in children's books, in a good and funny read and to everyone looking for a good present.
As a children's bookseller I have read many children books but not ALL of them, but Lucy Mangan clearly must have devoured them all.
It is so entertaining reading about her childhood, her mother, her family and her relationship with books. Even more informative are the many snippets of extra information she gives about authors and the reception of their books throughout time.
Great book!!!

A fun memoir of reading as a child, Lucy Mangan works through from her pre-reading days, which she describes as sitting like a lump, waiting for reading ability to strike, to the teen books she enjoyed.
Perfect reading for any bookworms.

I found this an unusual book but it was an enjoyable read. I am glad that I did not have anyone analysing my books when I read them as a child as I just enjoyed the stories and seemed to live to just read what I thought of as wonderful stories. It was lovely to be reminded of some of the books that I read and that I read to my children. Learning the history of some of the authors and perhaps why they wrote such stories was nothing short of amazing. A great book to read for all bookworms.

So, fellow GoodReaders, this is probably our communal biography! Anyone who charts their childhood by what they were reading, anyone who recalls the wonder of weekly visits to the library with a parent (all those books!), anyone who remembers being forced to read the back of the cereal packet because books weren't allowed at the dining table will find themselves in here.

Mangan captures beautifully not just the fact of reading constantly, but the magic of complete child-like immersion in other worlds. As she says, as children we read uncritically, we expect - and usually find - pleasure in every book we open. And we re-read - obsessively. Something of that innocent passion dissipates as we get older: not every book is as good as we want it to be, real life can be difficult to shut off, and re-reading can feel like an indulgence when there are new books, review copies, prize-winners and talking points to catch up with.

Although I'm younger than Mangan, I was surprised at how few childhood books we share: Plop, yes; Little Women, of course; Alice in Wonderland, for sure; the Narnia books, oh yes. But that doesn't really matter because what is most familiar here is the time we had to read as kids and the sheer obsession with buying, collecting and reading books, sometimes literally all day. Bliss!

I've loved Mangan's writing since her Stylist column - she's less biting here, but just as open, witty and acute. She mingles her memoirs with potted lives of the writers she loved and offers up a mini history of children's writing, unafraid to confront the controversies of authors whose historical placement meant they offered up only white, middle-class stories that internalised gender and other constrictions.

This is a fast read but it recalls with warmth and wit the books and very practice of reading which made us who we are today. And oh yes, the nostalgia of Ladybird books!

Many thanks to Vintage for an ARC via NetGalley

This is a thoroughly enjoyable book but it is also a very subjective one. If you are not a bookworm and do not have the appreciation for bookworms and their ilk this may not be your thing. Also, having heard of or read eighty percent of the mentioned books, I enjoyed those sections more than the ones I had not heard of before.All said and  done, I will still be giving this five stars because of the level of excitement when I saw something familiar and something that took me back a long way.

The author begins with her life and the life's purpose of devouring books. She rightfully points out that it is never a choice, it is just something we do(notice the all-inclusive we). I paused so often at sections that resonated and it took me a long time to jump across the recollections to get back to the book (overall I took a surprisingly long time to finish).The initial 'introduction' she gives to the rest of the book is so amusingly written that I am considering putting more of the author's books on my to-read list.She mentions in detail how some of the books made a lasting impact and how she carries it with her. The colourful and strange world of fiction have hidden depths, some of the more morose of those depths are later realized during adulthood.The reactions of the people around her to her chosen lifestyle are icing on the cake.

The last few years, with more time and unlimited resources to choose from I have been reading like never before but this book made me go back to when it all began and I delighted with the memories it threw up in front of me. I may not share the style of reading that the author possesses but the feeling of kinship that this entire book triggers is worth every minute spent with it. It comes with a complete list at the end if we want to add to our collections as well.There is so much more I can talk about the book but that would not really qualify as a review, it would be part of a book club discussion!

Growing up, I was often found with my nose in a book, at school, at home, in the park. It didn't really matter where, books were my constant companions. So, when I saw Bookworm, I knew it was for me. Written by a self-professed bookworm, for fellow book lovers everywhere.

Right from the first pages, I knew this was going to be a book I took to my heart. Lucy Mangan writes with confidential ease, like she's sharing these bookish secrets with you, and you alone. It's charming and relatable instantly. I've tried to read bookish non-fiction before, such as The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller but I struggled with relating to the memoirs and anecdotes. This was absolutely not the way with Bookworm.

Although we were born 11 years apart, it seems Lucy and I share a great deal in common with childhood reads, from the classics like Where The Wild Things Are and The Very Hungry Caterpillar to more niche reads such as Dicey's Song. So, it was happy coincidence that reading Lucy's memoirs took me back through my own memories of my pony book phase, Sweet Valley High addiction and forays into adult books.

Bookworm is a thoroughly charming book, and Lucy is an engaging writer with bags of humour and passion. Her joy of books is infused in every page and I loved sharing this journey with her.

I would like to add a warning though, my Amazon basket is positively groaning now with books that Lucy loved and that I missed as a child. So read with caution!

A fabulous book which I adored and will be pressing on everybody, especially my contemporaries, as I'm an almost exact contemporary and pretty much reading twin of the author.

More details in my review on my blog, linked below - I will also be reviewing this on the Shiny New Books website and will add the link there once that's live.

Although I am a bit older than the author I knew almost all of the books she refers to and what a delight it turned out to be. She grew up in a period when I was reading aloud her favourite books to my own children and it produced such happy memories for me too. When she started on the classics I was then transported back to my own childhood where books were in very short supply and your were very reliant on the local library.

If you love books then this is definitely for you.

Mangan's book is a nostalgia fest but manages never to become rose-tinted. A charming and engaging memoir of her childhood reading that's combined with a brief history of publishing for children. It's inspired me to go back and revisit some childhood favourites of my own.

I absolutely loved this book. My only regret is that it wasn't longer. I have read nearly all the same books as Lucy, and feel about reading much the same way she does, particularly about childhood reading. Books were my refuge and solace and were more real to me than my actual life. I have already started ordering the few books she recommends that I haven't read. I have also already bought Lucy's book for my mum, who will love it as much as me. It was truly magical.

Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy Mangan will appeal to all bookworms, but it’s more than an account of what Lucy read, it’s also a history of children’s books, details of their authors and a memoir of Lucy’s childhood. I loved it – it’s full of the joy and love of books, the intensity of reading and the ‘instant and complete absorption in a book‘. She writes with verve and humour, in a chatty style that makes it so readable. Reading her book is like being in conversation with a friend.

As I am older than Lucy, inevitably she mentions books I didn’t read as I was growing up (but have read some of them in later life) , especially in the later sections of her book, books she read as a teenager, but I was quite surprised and pleased to find that our reading in early childhood was so similar, and just like her, books have made me the person I am – why else would I be writing a blog called ‘BooksPlease‘.

As long as I can remember I have loved books and I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t read. So I was delighted to find that she too loved Teddy Robinson by Joan L Robinson. This is the first book I remember borrowing from the library. I loved it so much I was dreadfully upset that I had to return it. Teddy Robinson was owned by a little girl named Deborah and I am so envious that Lucy Mangan has actually met Deborah, who showed her the original drawings for the books her mother wrote.

And then there are some of my most loved books when I was young such as Milly-Molly-Mandy, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Katy books, Little Women, Good Wives and Jo’s Boys, The Borrowers, the Narnia books, Ballet Shoes, and The Secret Garden. I re-read them many times over.

There’s a whole section on Enid Blyton – The Blyton Interregnum. I was very interested to see her view of this writer whose books I too adored. Blyton wrote around 760 books during her fifty-year writing career! Despite the criticism of her books as mediocre material, formulaic books with fantastical plots Lucy considers, correctly I think, that they are books that provided comfort reading during and in the aftermath of the Second World War. Not only that, they are satisfying stories that lay down a base for future reading, providing books that are fun to read and opening up the ‘pleasure-filled world of reading’. Then there are the questions about prejudice, sexism, class snobbery and racism, in Blyton’s books, which Lucy (and I) missed completely whilst reading as children.

She writes about re-reading the books as an adult as a ‘discombobulating experience‘ – stories that once wholly enraptured you no longer have that same magic, and about her disappointment in returning to Enid Blyton’s books and finding them unreadable. It’s the main reason I don’t go back to the books I loved as a child – I really don’t want to lose the magic they held for me then.

There is so much in this book I could write about, it’s packed with the magic of books and reading it has given me hours of nostalgic pleasure – but the best thing I think is to leave you to read this lovely book for yourself.

Many thanks to Random House UK for a review copy via NetGalley.

*I received a free ARC of this novel via NetGalley. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*

Bookworm feels like the tale of my own personal journey through my literary life, but told by someone far wittier, in a self-deprecating way, than I could ever hope to be.

During the course of reading this book I was prompted to look up numerous illustrations online, dig out my own childhood reading favourites to dust off for Minishine’s approval, and add numerous classic (or merely aged) children’s books to my wish list; some to discover and some to reminisce over.

Bookworm is a treasure trove for anyone who finds themself in the title of the book. The author’s revulsion at sociability and the outdoors is mirrored in my own irritation at anything that tears me from the pages of a book, and I was suddenly no longer alone in my label as ‘that weirdo that carries a book with her everywhere…even when she’s just gone for a wee’!

It was glorious to discover old, familiar stories in Mangan’s reading history, and to vehemently nod or vigorously shake my head as she remembers and reviews them. Equally thrilling were the descriptions of (the very few!) books I hadn’t read; the discovery that I am not the only completist whose tastes run to the popular or ‘potboiler’ as well as the more lauded literary gems; and the realisation that my own evolution through fiction could be so similar to someone else’s (animals, ballet, Ladybird, school stories, etc), as if there is some sort of gene that dictates the reading metamorphosis of the common Bookworm!

If you love books, loved books, and swallowed them whole from the first time you gummed a board book, then Bookworm is the feast you’ve been waiting for. Reading Bookworm is like chatting to your best friend about the books you loved in your childhood… but without having to actually talk to anyone or put down your book!

How can any bookworm resist this delightful mix of reminders of childhood favourite books and funny self-deprecating humour of a woman whose life has been shaped by them? Not me!

Lucy was a bookworm from the word go, she remembers the familiar The Hungary Caterpillar with his holes with the same affection she recalls Sugarpink Rose, written by Adela Turin and Nella Bosnia and published by a 1970s feminist collective, this book sadly didn’t appear on my bookshelf but I now wish it had. Visits to the library, sitting quietly reading under the benign eyes of various women as her mother ran her gynae clinics all are bought to life, a story of an era as well as a story of the books that Lucy sought out in each destination.
In the introduction the author proclaims of her childhood books:

They made me who I am.

And I feel the same way. Would my own past be the same if it hadn’t spent hours exploring lives of fantasy and of hard reality, and those particular books that came on the journey to becoming an adult with me, must surely have altered the person I am? Through the book which provides the reader with a light touch to the history of children’s publishing, the author explores some key books – those where she had her own personal light-bulb moments, proving that books can and do expand the mind, even if they are flights of an author’s imagination but as Lucy Mangan tells us:

You hear a lot about books expanding the mind – less gets said about its occasional usefulness in battering your expectations of life down to manageable proportions. But it really ought to be credited with both. High hopes are the thief of time and contentment.
Yes, not only does this book appeal for the sheer nostalgic value, the author being only a few years younger than me seems to have had a pretty identical pile of books to read as well, but it is the first book this year that has had me laughing out loud at the humour that winds itself around my favourite subject. The other plus of reading this book having been born in same era, is that there is that recognition of a time that will never return. After all I think those of us born in the Seventies were left to our own devices a whole load more than any generation that followed us and these glimpses of that lost time are now even more firmly linked to the books that I read.
As this is a book about books, and even better many of the books that guided me through childhood to emerge into the big wide world I should probably tell you what to expect. The book is structured chronologically so we have the picture books, early readers, school and the slightly longer books with chapters via a pleasant detour through the Puffin Post, onto those classics such as the Railway Children and through to pre-teens (who most definitely had not been invented in the early eighties) to Judy Blume before we launch into books with rude bits in them, followed by the marketing dream Sweet Valley High before easing us into adult fiction.

The books are numerous, the author’s natural delight at most of the books not at all at odds with those natural prejudices which somewhat dictates our choices. There are descriptions of those moments where the passing of a bookworm’s chief enjoyment onto the next generation with mixed results with all those milestones that accompany us through childhood made this an absolute delight to read.

I will leave you at the ending where yet again the author exactly mirrors how I feel, she was writing this book for me!

Adult reading – by which I mean reading adult books at a roughly adult age – is different to reading children’s books at as a child. It is still my favourite thing to do, it still absolutely necessary to me, I still become fractious and impatient if I do not get my daily ‘fix’ – but the quality of the experience is different. I do not get absorbed as easily or as fully. I am more pernickety.

I’d like to say a huge thank you to the publishers Random House UK for providing me with an advance review copy of Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading. I could honestly spout on about this book for ages, it was a brilliant read and one where I hadn’t got to the end of the first chapter before I pre-ordered a copy of the hardback to delight me in the future too and for ease of referring to the list of books helpfully compiled at the end.

I received a free e-book copy of this title from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Lucy Mangan's "Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading" is a warm, wonderful, and extremely engrossing story of the author's journey through the land of childhood reading, from the earliest books, read to her by her father, to the first ones she read on her own, to the treasure troves of subsequent libraries, to, finally, Sweet Valley High, and other young adult classics (or non-classics). It was a beautifully nostalgic read, especially when Mangan was describing books I have read myself (the bookscape of my childhood was quite different from hers, focusing on fairytales and odds and ends available to children in the newly-capitalist Poland; I didn't happen upon, say, The Borrowers, until I was too old and jaded, at the age of eight, to appreciate it). However, it's by no means necessary to have read the same books as the author. As a fellow bookworm, I could just empathize so much with the descriptions of delight at finding new favourite literary hero(in)es and landscapes. Mangan returns to some of the old favourites with caution, in some cases noting that she can now see their problematic aspects; in others, emphasizing her continued love for the titles and hope that her young son will enjoy them as much as she has.

I highlighted a lot of lines, some about books, some just about growing up, but this might be my favourite quote from the book:

"You simply never know what a child is going to find in a book (or a graphic novel, or a comic, or whatever) - what tiny, throwaway line might be the spark that lights the fuse that sets off an explosion in understanding whose force echoes down years. And it enables me to keep, at bottom, the faith that children should be allowed to read anything at any time. They will take out of it whatever they are ready for. And just occasionally, it will ready them for something else."

I might not agree 100% (there are some books you shouldn't read at a young age), but I know the sensation Mangan describes here so well.

Much, much recommended.

This book took me back deep into my childhood, on a big wave of nostalgia, to a place where books were my most precious commodity. As a fellow bookworm, I have read and loved some of the same books and series as the author, and this memoir sent me online immediately, trying to purchase copies of old favourites to reread and share with my own children and those I teach. I really loved reading this book, which has not only sparked inspiration and ideas that I can use with my children to enrich their reading, but also put me into a warm and happy place, reminding me of why I love reading sooo much. And if I’m honest, I cannot wait to reread some of my childhood favourites! Fab book, thank you Lucy Mangan!

Bookworm is informative and knowledgeable about children’s fiction without being at all heavy and, of course, Lucy Mangan writes deftly and with humour, particularly about herself. Although I couldn’t go with her to Sweet Valley High, most of the books she read as a child were the books I read, too, so it was lovely to revisit them with her. However, Bookworm is far more than just nostalgia. Mangan really understands how powerful books are when you’re young, how you inhabit them, how they fill you and how they change you. Line by line, page by page, she shows the way the books she read as a child shaped her, and gives these varied, enjoyable and, in fact, important books the attention they richly deserve.

Bookworm: A memoir of childhood reading by Lucy Mangan was a must read for me as soon as I read the description. Why would a bookworm not want to read a book about books and being a bookworm?

Lucy Mangan begins the book by telling the author she still has all her childhood books and that she loves them all because they made me who I am.

She talks about her sister saying that was a friendless child but she counters who needed flesh-and-blood friends when I had Jo March, Charlotte, Wilbur and everyone at Mallory Towers at my beck and call?

I loved the mention of Mallory Towers because it brought back to me my own love of that series and a memory of upsetting my mum by asking her why I couldn’t go and live in a boarding school like the characters in the book.

Lucy Mangan explains, I read because I loved it. I read wherever I could, whenever I could, for as long as I could.

She talks about her lack of interest in baby bouncers and the like and her explanation is one of my favourite quotes from the book:

“I think the explanation lies in the fact that I wasn’t really a baby. I was a bookworm, life doesn’t really begin until you get hold of your first book, until then – well, you’re just waiting really.”

Bookworm: A memoir of childhood reading added to my own list of books I want to read as well as reminding me of some of the classics I enjoyed reading as a child. I have vague memories of reading both The Hungry Caterpillar and Spot The Dog. Like Lucy books by Enid Blyton formed a large part of my childhood reading, although other than the Mallory Towers books I preferred the like of The Tower in Ho-Ho Wood.

One of the other things I found I shared with Lucy was that as a child one of the things I loved the most about reading was the joy of discovering new words and their meaning.

Her description of trying to narrow down her choice of library book was familiar to me as well, not just in a library but anytime I had to choose a book to take home with me. Many times, my dad would give in out of frustration and let me make an extra choice just so we could go home.

My favourite quote from the Bookworm: a memoir of childhood reading describes a process that often happens to me still whenever I read and probably frustrates those around me as it frustrated Lucy’s mother.

“I never deliberately ignored her calls to come to lunch or dinner or to start cleaning my teeth and get ready for bed. Like every bookworm before and since, I simply and genuinely didn’t hear them.”

This book is a must read for any bookworm and for anyone wanting to build a library for their own child but aren’t sure where to start.

As a life-long reader and someone who turns to books in times of crisis, illness and as relaxation, Bookworm was a totally indulgent read from start to finish. Mangan's love of books and of reading pours from every page and when she gets to talking about Milly Molly Mandy my heart leapt with joy. Like the author, the Milly Molly Mandy books hold the most special place in my heart and have been returned to again and again over the course of my life. It was such a treat to feel this shared joy with a writer whose columns and other work I've always enjoyed. This book is the perfect present for anyone who enjoys reading, or for someone who might have forgotten how to enjoy it and wants to reignite the spark. I'm already wondering when I can read it again.