Winnie vs Carrie.

I can remember the exact moment I fell in love with books. I don’t recall my age exactly but I will have been around 5 or 6.

Winnie The Pooh

My mum was reading Winnie the Pooh to me, the one where he falls out of the tree trying to get honey. I laughed so much when he landed in the gorse bush at the bottom that my mum read it several more times, to increasingly hysterical laughter.

I learned two things that day. One, that books can do amazing things. I had been ill that day and the humour of Winnie the Pooh had made me feel better. Two, that I had a mean sense of humour!

I was always read to as a child and do the same now with my own. I think childhood is the place we plant seeds and a love of books and reading is such an essential seed to plant.

It was firmly planted for me that day when a bear of very little brain fell out of a tree. Since that day, I have come across other books that did amazing things. I recall the first Stephen King book I read (Carrie) at 13, both the best and worst age to read that book and seeing the whole world of grown-up books opening before me.

Carrie

For those who don’t know, Carrie is about a teenage girl who struggles to fit in at school. The opening scene tells of her getting her first period in the shower at school in front of all the other girls. She is the daughter of a religious zealot mother who has hidden certain things from her (like periods) to try and keep her innocent.

It all goes very wrong very quickly when a shower of pig’s blood rains down on Carrie at her prom and her telekinetic powers are unleashed on her unsuspecting schoolmates. An ideal tome for a 13 year-old girl.

The Book Thief

I remember reading the end of The Book Thief on the tram in Sheffield and working harder than I ever have done to hold back the tears. If I had been on my own, it would have been soggy.

The Book Thief was the first time I had experienced a story from the German side of World War 2, there still aren’t a lot out there, certainly not in the mainstream. It focused on the impact of the Nazi’s book burning and our heroine breaks into a nearby house to raid the library that still stands. The ending I won’t give away but it is a brutal and heart wrenching reminder that war doesn’t discriminate, even if the perpetrators of it do.

The Sun Also Rises

Studying English at university lead to a love and hatred of several books but when I picked up The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, I had no idea where it would lead. To cut a long story short; it essentially led me to my husband!

The story of The Sun Also Rises doesn’t really matter. All Hemingway’s narratives are second to the dialogue exchanged between his wonderfully fleshed out characters. I found it hard not to admire Brett who was a rebellious woman of her time, leading men around and taking control.

So books can do amazing things, and falling in love with reading is an amazing feeling. And it’s never too late, if you have never had that experience try and seek it out. There is a book soulmate out there for everyone.

Charlotte Wood is a feminist and writer of the macabre and sinister. She reads horror, fantasy, classic literature and historical fiction (with a preference for history from a woman’s perspective).