There’s nothing more powerful & persuasive than someone you’re fond of telling you about a book they’ve really enjoyed: research has shown that personal recommendation is the single most important factor when people are choosing what to read next.
TO CELEBRATE NATIONAL YEAR OF READING IN MANCHESTER -
we would like to encourage as many people in Manchester as possible to keep a Reading Diary for 2008.
We would love to hear what you’ve been reading during the National Year of Reading – help us build a picture of what our city is reading during this landmark year.
We want to hear from Mancunians of all ages and you’re free to write in whichever format you prefer – start your own blog (we’ll promote it here if you send us the link) attached to our website or keep a more conventional diary.
We’re particularly keen on diaries which reflect:-
- the views of children & teenagers
- which books parents are sharing with babies & toddlers
- the full range of languages & cultures represented in Manchester
We want to hear about the books you’ve loathed as well as the ones you’ve loved – the ones that kept you up all night as well as the ones you couldn’t be bothered to finish….
12 comments
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April 22, 2008 at 11:25 am
Mike Ruffle
My most memorable book was ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
The book had a profound effect upon me in two particular ways.
Firstly, it taught me to appreciate my own life. The protagonist, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, is serving time in a Stalinist Gulag. In spite of the incredibly inhumane conditions, he nonetheless clings assiduously to life. Shukhov has every justification for ending his own life, for placing little or no value upon it, and yet he continues an almost impossible daily struggle to preserve it. I understood that despite my own meagre privations, I would never be likely to have things as tough in my own life as Shukhov and that whatever beset me it could never be of such consequence as to wish to throw my life away. There is always hope.
Secondly, it also taught me the value of the smallest items. Living in a consumerst and throw-away society it has become easy to see almost everything as disposable. Shukhov survives with only the most simple and basic of necessities. Apart from the clothes he stands up in, two of his most valued items are a bowl and a spoon. One senses that without these, Shukhov would surely succumb. A bowl and a spoon. I pledged to myself that I would never complain about my own perceived shortage of material items and that each item I possessed contributed in some way, no matter how trivial the item itself, to my well-being.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was an inspirational read and is predicated on the indefatigable nature of the human spirit. I have revisited it many times and highly recommend you give it a try.
May 2, 2008 at 10:08 am
Bridget McKeown
You beat me to that one Mike!
We are just about to read that in our Reading Group at East City Library and I’m hoping that the group are affected also.
My overall feeling when I finished it was “wow” and then “wow” again. I got so engrossed with his existence that I completely forgot the title and it hit me hard at the end.
Definately one to read in your lifetime!
May 22, 2008 at 2:58 pm
chantelle
docter who
because i love books with monsters in
and with lots of imaginery things
May 22, 2008 at 3:02 pm
nora.m
My book is Nancy Drue
it’s very life changing because there is lots of advencher and mistery that is why i love Nancy Drue.
May 22, 2008 at 3:14 pm
afsana.r
my favourite book is harry potter the oder of the phonix i like this book because there is lots of adventures for harry potter.there are different feelings in this book.and lots of mysteries.
May 22, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Hope
Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien is the greatest book written on eath. During the ring quest it follows Frodo on his journey to destroy the one ring, we also see Aragorn, heir to the Gondor throne, Legolas, an elf from Mirkwood, Gimli, a dwarf from the lonely mountain and others.
This stroy of Arda all his life and it shas the book which inspired hundrds of adventure fantasy novels. Tolkien worked on the stroy all his life and it shows.
May 22, 2008 at 3:37 pm
husnain
hi,my favourite book is Tintin.Tintin is a comic with realy good adventures. And it is very funny.All of my brothers like that comic.You will like Tintin.
it takes to the old time like egyptians.I read it in spanish but it is in english too.During the adventure it fallows Tintin and his dog and Tornasol.
For me the best is Tintin.
May 22, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Ayan
my favorite book is harry potter because it is funny and norty
May 22, 2008 at 3:50 pm
aiza
secret seven adventure collectoin are really good books . They are fine
stories I was given my first secret seven book by my uncel when I was
seven I think you will like secret seven.
May 22, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Cleopatra
The book I read was written in notesthat were left on the fridge door, between a mother and daughter. It really showed what some families go through. The mother had cancer and it was very life changing, not only to the daughter, but to me because, the mother dies. This was probobley the bestest book I have ever read. It was beautiful.
May 23, 2008 at 5:03 pm
sazrennie
At the moment I am reading Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym. It is the fourth Pym I have read and I am actually doing my dissertation on her for my next, final, year of my English degree. Pym is understated, under-rated and utterly hilarious. These are social comedies of subtle genius, somewhere between Jane Austen and Alan Bennet.
Pym wrote from the early fifties to her death in 1980 but was sadly unpublished through much of the sixties and early seventies. Her revival was brought about largely from pressure brought to bear by the likes of Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil. She was nominated for the Booker in 1980.
Virago have recently re-published some of her works and there does seem to be a gentle resurgence of interest in her work (anything but gentle just wouldn’t be Pym). It was my girlfriend who first got me into Pym and we attend the Pym Society conferences at St Hilda’s College Oxford every autumn. Unbelievably, I seem to be the only heterosexual northern male under the age of seventy who attends…
June 21, 2008 at 11:03 am
patricia donohue
I think my favourite author,s of all time must be Howard Spring and H.E.Bates. also Daphne Du Maurier,I probably read most of these authors books when I had just left school in the 60,s and started to read for pleasure, most of these books were written in the 1930,s and 1940,s and contain a wealth of beautiful description about the landscape ofEngland, particularly Cornwall, and whilst you are reading them you find youself in these lovely places.
H.E.Bates, of course, wrote “the darling Buds of May” which is a popularT.V. series,and probably made Catherine Zeta jones famous!
I became interested in Howard Spring because his novels were mainly set in Manchester.
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