I’m addicted to reading

I was lucky enough to be able to read from an early age, I can barely remember not being able to read. It has given me so much pleasure, taught me so much and I can’t imagine not being able to. I would go as far as to say I’m addicted to reading. I first joined a book club in the 1990’s at the local library. We were a varied bunch of people and we had most interesting evenings together discussing whatever our choice of book was. I think we met once a month and although very friendly, we didn’t become friends outside of our meetings.

We moved away and in our new place, I once again joined a book club. This time it wasn’t in the locall library, but it was in someone’s home. A notice had been placed on the college notice board and I had rung the number given to enquire about a book club, and was given the address. I can’t remember the exact date, but i would guess it was some time in the early 2000’s. This was a different sort of book club, and we soon became friends, and now it still continues and three of us are among the founding readers, still together, still reading, still enjoying each other’s company – and getting together at other times,nothing to do with books. I did for a while join another two groups, one at Waterstone’s book shop, and one was for readers of history and historical books. It was about this group that I wrote a blog, five years ago:

It’s a good thing I love reading because I have just joined a third book group. This one is for people who enjoy reading historical books – novels, biographies, non-fiction… any book to do with the past! For our first meeting it was suggested that we bring two or three books we would recommend to be read in the group; we each gave a brief introduction to our choices and why we thought they would make interesting reading and lead to an interesting discussion.
It won’t come as a surprise that the first book I suggested was one I really enjoyed and have written quite a lot about, ‘A Voyage For Madmen‘ – Peter Nichols. It is fifty years since the first single-handed non-stop round the world yacht race took place; nine brave (or crazy) yachtsmen took to sea with various amounts of experience and set off between June and October of that year. Even with in the first few months, people were retiring for various reasons, but four of them made it through into the new year of 1969. Of those four, one retired, one sank, one killed himself and the last man standing (or sailing!) won. It’s a great book, wonderfully written.
The second book I recommended was ‘Elizabeth’s Spymaster‘ by Robert Hutchinson. I don’t have a specific interest in Tudor history, but I do have an interest in spying and espionage, so any books which chronicle the life and activities of Francis Walsingham, the eponymous Elizabethan spymaster, fascinates me! This is the Amazon blurb for the book:
Francis Walsingham was the first ‘spymaster’ in the modern sense. His methods anticipated those of MI5 and MI6 and even those of the KGB. He maintained a network of spies across Europe, including double-agents at the highest level in Rome and Spain – the sworn enemies of Queen Elizabeth and her Protestant regime. His entrapment of Mary Queen of Scots is a classic intelligence operation that resulted in her execution.
As Robert Hutchinson reveals, his cypher expert’s ability to intercept other peoples’ secret messages and his brilliant forged letters made him a fearsome champion of the young Elizabeth. Yet even this Machiavellian schemer eventually fell foul of Elizabeth as her confidence grew (and judgement faded). The rise and fall of Sir Francis Walsingham is a Tudor epic, vividly narrated by a historian with unique access to the surviving documentary evidence.
My third choice was of another mystery, a two thousand-year old mystery… what happened to the Roman legions in the Teutoberg Forest? Three Roman legions, (Legio XVII, Legio XVIII, and Legio XIX), six cohorts of auxiliary troops, and three squadrons of cavalry – alae, totalling about 25,000 men were led by General Varus into the dense, dark forest of Teutoberg. An impressive force, but they were ambushed by Germanic tribesmen under their leaders of Arminius. No-one really knows the toll of life on that day, maybe only five thousand survived – many soldiers (including General Varus, killing themselves) There are many books about this terrible event, but the book I recommended to the group was ‘Rome’s Greatest Defeat: Massacre In The Teutoburg Forest‘ by Adrian Murdoch.
As you can imagine there was a wide range of different books recommended, some I’d read, some I’d heard of, some completely new to me: