Do you ever wonder where on earth you get your love of books from? I myself think its is pretty clear. Going to my Gran’s you could see that it is fairly clear where one of my reading influences comes from. I am hoping that as she is coming to stay here (I am worried she might be unimpressed by my bookshelves – we will see) she may do a guest blog one day. Mind you if she does it could be one of my biggest hits and then she will start a blog and bang off will fly my readers hahaha. I will see if I can get her to have a go. Yesterday I mentioned my mother and grandmother and how they would be most jealous of my Atwood Arrival, and then realised I have never really mentioned my mother much.
Now there is one more huge book influence in my family and that is my mother, my English Literature teaching mother. I recently went to visit and thought I would bring back some photo’s of another book-a-holic’s life that I aspire too. Though maybe not in such a quiet village in Shropshire as she resides, I mena seriously its too quite. They don’t even have streetlights, its like a Miss Marple village, but the views are stunning, you can over look all this…
Sat on lovely benches (please excuse the chickens Flick, Elma and Delia – who still have yet to lay an egg and earn their keep the rude things)…
Or curl up with the cat…
Not far from a stunning but quite spooky churchyard in your back garden…
And read books, which I know is what you really want to see…
Lots and lots of books. My mother doesn’t actually have a reading room like my Gran with a library, but she does have a reading corridor, seriously. It’s wonderful as you just want to endlessly wander down it and back again checking you haven’t missed anything.
She does of course have more book shelves here there and everywhere but it seems I have inherited the ‘books I have read need to be seperate from the ones that I haven’t rule’ from her. The corridor is soley books that she has read and loved. Though why when she went into a slight tirade about Anita Brookner’s ‘Hotel du Lac’. As my Gran was there at the time and they knew I was going to be reading the Man Booker Long List we had quite a debate about Man Booker winners and if they are any good. The concencus was reached that ‘you always think that no good books have won the Man Booker, then when you really think about it you realise you are quite wrong’. It seems I am not the only one of my mothers offspring that has caught the book worm gene…
My sister is eleven and she has lots of bookshelves, I am only showing these ones as they are the neatest! The state of the others is slightly unsightly with cracked spines with bent back covers (my mother is also a page corner turner and a spinecracker – somethings I haven’t taken on and can’t abide) that might cause book worshippers worldwide to faint in dismay. Don’t worry people I have had a word and have been promised that this will change… or else! I think its quite an impressive that she has such a wonderful set of shelves at such an early stage, she did in fact disappear several times to ‘go and read Inkspell’ which when my brother is killing aliens on the playstation is quite unusual for a child. My brother being eight is just getting into reading… but only when there is nothing else for him to do.
Where do you get your love of books from? Is it hereditary from other people or is it just something you grew to love yourself? Were your parents the complete opposite of book-lovers?
Savidge Reads 
OMG, that would be awesome for your gran to do a guest post! You can mention to her that I will come and be her live-in maid any time she wants. I love her house! I also love your mom’s too. There are days when I just want to go back to my roots on the farm. But instead of driving a tractor and planting beans and corn, I want to own sheep, and make cheese (I was inspired in Poland). I totally get my love of books from my mom. She was always reading when I was a kid. Just recently I featured her top 10 book list, and it was alot of fun traveling down her literary memory lane!
I will see what magic can be weaved from Granny Savidge Reads, I can’t promise anything but will give her a few sherries and the keyboard and see what happens! My mum’s is lovely though too quiet for me, least my Gran has local supermarkets and stuff.
I will look up your Mum’s top ten books, I do think for some of us its hereditary… maybe I will get my gran’s top ten when she is down! Hmmm that might work.
I love seeing all your mum’s books!
I have no idea where I get my love of reading from. My mum never reads books and although my dad reads about one book a month now he never read anything when I was younger.
My sister reads about 2 books a year. It is very strange!
So its not in the fmaily, thats really interesting, what made you fall in love with books?
Book-loving is a recessive gene in our family. The only other book lover in the family was my half-uncle from my mother’s side.
Hahahahaha I love that first line, it could be a wonderful first line in a novel, or a book on books you should use it Lizzy!
You mom is living my ideal life — perhaps someday I can retire to that quaint English country village with all my books 🙂
I also have no idea where I obtained my love of books. My mother enjoys reading now, but I do not remember her reading when I was growing up; my dad was always traveling. Interestingly enough, my brother is a more avid reader than I am. Maybe the “book gene” skipped a generation or two in my family?
Maybe it skipped a few generations is all? My Mums life is very nice but like I have mentioned so so so quiet. They have to have air ambulances they are so far away from the world.
My mother is a reader too, but the rest of my family, not so much.
I’m happy to hear you’re teaching your sister proper book-handling ways 😀
Hahahaha she needs some teaching, she is quite proud of her new shelves though which is a good sign.
I get my love of books from my mother, who peruses books whenever she had a chance aside from her house chores. What truely made me adore books was the school library. I felt so privileged having my own library card and I was aspired to read every single (fiction) books in that library.
Your mother and my mother sound like they have a fair amount in common. My school library was rubbish but my mother always took me to the local library on a saturday, it was our weekly ritual when I was a kid.
I so enjoyed this post. I’ll take a Miss Marple like village anyday:) Books were always around when we were growing up…in bookcases, given as gifts and through trips to the library. But I do believe my sister and I have taken it to another level.
Watch out with a Miss Marple village though people tend to end up deceased and you wouldnt want that.
Didn’t think of that:) Amazing how those dead bodies keep popping up.
What a wonderful reading heritage! I definitely get my love of reading and all things literary from my journalist father – but we are pretty much the only 2 in the family with the reading gene!
It’s amazing how one person can be so influencial in your reading addiction isnt it. I wouldn’t know if my dad reads, though am guessing not. My step-dad is a closet reader. Claims he doesnt like books, but actually reads more than my mum.
My family all read, but my parents hardly ever seem to buy books now… they have lots, so I don’t know when they arrived, but now they mostly borrow from friends or the library. They don’t really understand why I want to buy more books than I can read, but luckily they’ve ceased trying to stop me…
Hahahahaha I think that you should dig out the history of this massive wealth of books that has just appeared!
I just love all of those book shelves; for me you can never have too many books. My love of books came from my parents who always had piles of library books on the go. I also remember my Junior School teacher Mrs Stead, who every afteroon read to us for the last 15 mins of the day. I got my love of Enid Blyton ‘The Famous Five’ from her.