My mother says that after I first visited the home of the man I later married, she knew it was serious when I told her, 'Mum, he has more books than me!' So, books are at the very heart of my life.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I had a very wise mother. She always kept books that were my grade level in our house.
My books are, in a way, a record of my life - that part of it that came to flower and fruit in my mind.
I read a lot, very passionately, from the time I was very young, but it was a constant battle; my mother would more or less let me be, but with my father, I was always searching for a place where he wouldn't find me. Whenever he saw me reading, he would tell me to put the book down and go outside, act like a normal person.
I always knew that I wanted to live with books, even as a child, because we traveled a lot. Home was the book to which I came back every evening.
If you're not a parent, if you're an aunt or uncle or neighbor, books are an amazing gift.
It's funny - my wife is more jealous of my books than of other women because I'm always working and thinking about my books.
I grew up in a house with very few books.
Books were in my family - books were my family.
I read a book a day when I was a kid. My family was not literary; we did not have any books in the house.
I grew up in a completely bookless household. It was my father's boast that he had never read a book from end to end. I don't remember any of his ladies being bookish. So I was entirely dependent on my schoolteachers for my early reading with the exception of 'The Wind in the Willows,' which a stepmother read to me when I was in hospital.