My father once told me some advice he’d been given by his teachers at boarding school in mid-century rural France. The school had an enormous library of old books and the boys were encouraged to read at least two hours a day. “The advice,” he said, “was that if after the first 50 pages of a book you don’t get hooked, you’re allowed to stop reading and try again later when you feel ready for it.”
My father credits this advice with igniting his lifelong love of literature. Because he spent his entire working life as a manual labourer, books for him have always belonged to a private, mostly domestic and almost sacred realm. I’ve never seen anyone read the way my father reads. He is the most compulsive and prolific reader I know.
