…Or the book that got me back into reading. That was rather a long title though! So this is less of a review more of a chat about the book Spies. Let me take you back to 2009 I was 18 I’d enrolled back at college for a third year due to deciding not to go to uni and not knowing what else to do, I was doing an English literature AS level partly because I’d already done the English language A Level and I’d been pretty good at literature at school. One of the texts we were given to study was Spies (alongside the poetry book The World’s Wife, which I can also recommend and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit which I wasn’t really a fan of). Before each lesson we had to have read up to a certain point in the book and although the book really isn’t long at all, I did wonder how I’d get on with it. See up until that point I couldn’t remember the last time I’d read for pleasure, probably way back as a child. I’d loved books as a kid and I still had shelves full of books however they were unread and a little unloved.
Then I picked Spies up for the first time and everything changed. I settled down to read the first part of the novel we’d been told to read and found myself flying past that point in no time, completely immersed in this book that had opened up a world which I’d shunned for such a long time. I loved that book and it’s safe to say I flew through the whole thing in no time (and then flicked back through it again numerous times through out my time studying it). It showed me just how powerful books can be and opened up a whole new world of reading as an adult. I spent my time professing my love of the book to anyone who would listen and felt like it was something personal when my mum didn’t share my enthusiasm of the novel, that’s how much I’d connected with it.
Since that day I’ve not stopped reading for pleasure. I may not be the worlds quickest reader but nothing beats the pleasure of a good story and I love getting lost in a whole new world.
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” – George R.R. Martin. I couldn’t have put it better myself!
What book holds a special place in your heart? Let me know below. Oh and if you’re after a new read I really can’t recommend Spies enough, you should check it out!
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