I am a big fan of Lucy Mangan’s writing in the Guardian and have a lot in common with her, as an introvert, book-lover who would much rather be curled up in silence with a book than out at a party. I also share her life experience, growing up a couple of years behind her and being at Cambridge at the same time. I therefore saved reading her latest book Bookish: A Love Letter to Reading until I had the time and space to enjoy it, which I did over the Easter weekend in Fowey.

Bookish describes adult Lucy’s life of books – what she has read and why, which books are her non-guilty pleasures and what she has turned to in times of need, whether post natal-depression, Covid or grief at her father dying. What surprised me was how little overlap there was between her taste and mine, even though we are both voracious readers of a similar age, who are fine with admitting they entirely read for pleasure and graze hungrily across genres, picking and choosing very different things depending on mood. This was a delight as it introduced me to lots of authors I hadn’t heard of who are now on my to be read (TBR) list.

I also made my regular trip to the lovely Shrew books in Fowey between the chapters of Bookish and came away with two more delights to add to the two books I brought with me for the weekend. Oh the joy of two afternoons in a row luxuriating in reading after a ten-mile walk in one case and a river trip the next. Nothing beats it and I know Lucy Mangan would agree.