HOW IT ALL BEGAN

She is as much a product of what she has read as of the way in which she has lived; she is like millions of others built by books, for whom books are an essential foodstuff, who could starve without.


You slide, in old age, into a state of perpetual diffidence, of unspoken apology. You walk more slowly than normal people, you are obliged to say 'what?' too often, others have to give up their seat on the bus to you, on train journeys you must ask for help with your absurdly small and light case. There is avoid somewhere in your head into which tip the most familiar names; President Obama went into it yesterday, for all of five minutes, along with her over the road at home who has just sent a get-well card from 'Sue', but what on earth is her other name? You can use a computer, just about, and cope with a mobile, but with such slow deliberation that the watching young are wincing.

How It All Began by Penelope Lively

A very good book, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and very much like the cover photograph. I don't often have hardback books but this was a lucky find in Oxfam.