A 2020 Favourite

“You know when you hear a piece of music once, you haven’t heard it properly, you want to hear it again. A well-made book will reward you in exactly the same way as music does, in that you will understand and love a piece. You’ll feel the cadence and depth of it and hear things in it all the time. If you pay it a little more attention, it will reward you, like all art. Like everything, actually.”

“I am even a bit afraid of the way I read. It’s like mother was when Rowley was coming, eating all the crusts off the bread. She just couldn’t stop eating bread. She’d set a loaf on the table and start cutting all its sides off, then turn it over and carve its bottom off. Then she’d say ‘It’s really dreadful the way I’m eating bread,’ and her arm would come reluctantly out and she’d start carving little bits off the slopes, until the bread stood all naked and white. And after a while she’d say, ‘Oh, dear, I’d love another crust.’”