No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy: Memoirs of a Working-Class Reader

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I too was and still am bookish; shyly burying my head in a fictional world to escape the difficulties of this one, so the musings on a childhood spent in books is literally like word porn to me. I was amassing rather a "collection" of books too, but soon realised that some books I had kept purely for the sake of it, as opposed to them bringing me real joy, hence my recent and ongoing book culling! Emily Ratajkowski reveals plans to write a book about divorce from ex-husband Sebastian Bear-McClard as she stars in shoot for Vogue Australia Hodkinson recaptures all the innocence, joy and magic of childhood and the seemingly endless curiosity and adventure that comes along with it, and of course there is a long list of delightful authors, titles and bands to hunt down afterwards too. This is a funny, charming and delight to soak up, an unashamed celebration of a working class life/childhood and all of the simple and profound pleasures it brings along with it.

Olivia Culpo shows off her NFL star fiancé Christian McCaffrey's painful bruises and scratches from the 49ers' Thanksgiving win over the Seahawks Doctor Who 60th Anniversary: Viewers laud Yasmin Finney's debut after she steals the show as Donna Noble's transgender daughter Rose Mark’s journey into his own cocoon of books is a deeply personal tale but one with universal themes for all young lives shaped and transformed in some way by the written word … Thoughtful and engaging”

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As seems frequently to be the case in working-class autobiographies, the vivid language is often humorous. Sometimes this language is a brief phrase, as in “rear admiral” (208) for homosexual, or a short description, as in the appearance of Gertrude Stein’s fringe, “cut by either a love rival or a friend wearing oven gloves” (331). At other times the comedy is a more extended account, as in the description of the more extreme behaviour of some kids at Hodkinson’s comprehensive school (42), or the antics at a youth club (54), or comment on an amateur-dramatic production of Viva Mexico, with “’young, handsome banditos’ [. . .] played by four old blokes whose make-up looked to have been applied with a blunderbuss” (192). The humour is not subtle but it is funny. Chanelle Hayes showcases her impressive 9st weight loss in a yellow bikini as she soaks up the sun in Spain Doctor Who 60th Anniversary: Fans 'obsessed' by show's 'glorious' new opening titles as sci-fi series makes it's epic return: 'The budget is insane!' Emmerdale's Isabel Hodgins is engaged! Star shares heartwarming clip of the moment her fiancé Adam Whitehead popped the question On one hand, by having such a collection and planning to read all these books, you are making a fantastic statement of hope and revealing an investment in future self,’ she said. ‘Even if you recognise you probably won’t have time to read them all, you are already forming a relationship with mortality which we all must do at some point in our lives. The snag is the frustration you say you feel that comes with this relationship. This is something you need to deal with and accept. I sense that some of this dissatisfaction is because, for whatever reason, you have not read as many of these books as you’d have liked and you spend a lot of time projecting yourself into the future: a time and a place where and when you will finally do all the reading that you’ve always wanted to do. I also think that you see books subconsciously as a safety net. Everyone has a primal fear of abandonment and you have suffered this twice in your life. Most people experience this or similar and the pain is such that, in many different ways, they make preparations so that it either doesn’t happen again, and that can go as far as avoiding future relationships altogether, or setting down to themselves a clearly defined coping mechanism. I think, to you, books are metaphorical friends and part of the reason you have so many is that, ever so slightly and in a perfectly normal way, you have lost a little bit of trust in the world.

I like Hodkinson’s assessments of many of the books he’s read, too. I don’t agree with all of them, of course – that’s just how it is with books – but he is insightful, thoughtful and independent. He refuses to be cowed by orthodoxy, so when he writes of The Catcher In The Rye (which had a tremendous effect on him when young, as it did on so many of us) he resists the “agenda of cultural revisionism” which deems Holden to be “too male, too white, too privileged, too American, too heterosexual...flagrantly misogynistic…” Hodkinson says, “..social mores drawn predominantly from the 1940sare bound to jar in a modern context; it’s one of the reasons why we read: to understand and interpret the present through the past, how we got here.” Spot on, Mark! White Lotus stars Meghann Fahy and Leo Woodall kept romance private over fears they would 'disrupt the show'Eventually he achieves his ambition to write books himself. There are excellent sections at the end where he visits analysts to assuage or test his worry that he has too many books and may suffer from a hoarding affliction (bibliomania) rather than just being a bibliophile. Interesting accounts of these meetings are told almost verbatim. The final endnotes are great fun with examples of books he owns with inscriptions and bookplates and descriptions off what the numerous TBR piles contain in his house.

Lamenting the gradual death of the newspaper due to the growth of the internet, where every event can be posted onto the fame of Facebook, the author pulls out a great quote from Charles Bukowski – ‘The problem with the world is that intelligent people are full of doubt, while the stupid people are full of confidence.’ Demi Lovato braves VERY heavy snowfall as she headlines the Top Of The Mountain Opening Concert in Austria Beauty fans race to buy new ceramide-rich skincare line that's so effective fine lines virtually DISAPPEAR: 'Have noticed results after using it morning and night' This is a book about the north; it is also about publishing, writing and music, but it transcends its subjects and meets the criterion Hodkinson sets out in his preface: “The best books, the same as the best days, skitter on the breeze. They go their own way”’

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I rarely give up on a book. Even a bad book. I struggled to about 60% of the book, and gave up. To be clear… I don’t know the author, but it took no time at all to work out that I grew up poor ( we couldn’t afford the school trips he went on) within walking distance of him. I am four years older. My brother about his age. My sister about five years younger. I went to the same school that he has such a low opinion of. There is a good deal more here, including Hodkinson’s training and career as a journalist, then freelance writer, amateur musician, publisher and editor, with reflections on the state of newspapers, publishing and related matters and a good deal of personal history, most notably the story of his grandfather’s decline into mental illness after a head injury and its effect on the whole family. This is intercut throughout the book and, once I got used to switching in and out of the story, I found it touching and humane.