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  • Bookworm

  • A Memoir of Childhood Reading
  • By: Lucy Mangan
  • Narrated by: Lucy Mangan
  • Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (400 ratings)
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Bookworm cover art

Bookworm

By: Lucy Mangan
Narrated by: Lucy Mangan
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Summary

When Lucy Mangan was little, stories were everything. They opened up new worlds and cast light on all the complexities she encountered in this one.

She was whisked away to Narnia and Kirrin Island and Wonderland. She ventured down rabbit holes and womble burrows into midnight gardens and chocolate factories. She wandered the countryside with Milly-Molly-Mandy and played by the tracks with the Railway Children. With Charlotte's Web she discovered death, and with Judy Blume it was boys. No wonder she left the house only for her weekly trip to the library or to spend her pocket money on amassing her own at home.

In Bookworm, Lucy revisits her childhood reading with wit, love and gratitude. She relives our best-beloved books and their extraordinary creators and looks at the thousand subtle ways they shape our lives. She also disinters a few forgotten treasures to inspire the next generation of bookworms and set them on their way.

Lucy brings the favourite characters of our collective childhoods back to life - prompting endless rereadings, rediscoveries, and, inevitably, fierce debate - and brilliantly uses them to tell her own story, that of a born and unrepentant bookworm.

Cover credit: Laura Barrett

©2018 Lucy Mangan (P)2018 Audible, Ltd

What listeners say about Bookworm

Average customer ratings
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    5 out of 5 stars

just utterly fabulous.

I was delighted, moved and reminded of the best books and the best bits of my childhood. I laughed six different kinds of laugh and three different kinds of cry, including that ugly snivelling cry that can win actors a Bafta. Thank you, wonderful Lucy Mangan for this excellent history of children's literature by way of '80s kid memoir, love story, and recommended reading list.

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10 people found this helpful

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reliving my youth

loved this, was as of I was back to my own childhood. I got excited every time she talked about a book I had read. easy listening and well read.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

I recognise that bookworm

I was a bookworm too but twenty years earlier so the books weren't always the same. However the wonder losing yourself in a book is universal. Well read and amusing. Now read Francis Spufford's "The boy that books built".

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6 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

mixed feelings.

I struggled to complete the final 3 chapters, I found the earlier chapters more autobiographical

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4 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Very boring.

A woman who remembers reading when she was in nursery is very much full of it. What a waste of my time. I did not get anything out of the book did not enjoy it and would not suggest it to others. This may be a brutal review; however, I honestly can not see what anyone would get from this book other than being bored to sleep. Sorry just my opinion others might love the ramblings of a woman who enjoyed nothing but reading in her whole entire life.

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4 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Some real gems

As a fellow bookworm from early childhood I feel so recognised. It's only a 4 as it misses so many that could/should/would have been included that I would consider amongst the formative greats. But it's personal to each of us and being a few years behind the author and with a more sci fi inclined mind, there are bound to be differences. If you have children, you could do worse than use this as a guide towards some largely forgotten gems to open minds and hearts

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful

I absolutely loved this book. Humorous and thought provoking. As a child I loved books and was also a bookworm, unfortunately my reading appetite was heavily censored by my parents and I realise now how many books I missed out on as a consequence. Time to go back and rectify that I think!
Full of wonderful ideas for books to buy my grandchildren, I had to keep stopping the book to write them down.
Thank you Lucy for writing such a beautiful book, and so beautifully read too.

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Nostalgic walk through my book reading childhood

I feel this book was written for me, it was a beautiful walk through my childhood. Reminding me of some books I’d forgotten about....did every teacher read The Phantom Tollbooth to their class?
I made lots of reasons to listen to huge chunks of this book...longer walks etc and I didn’t want it to end. Lucy is brilliant at narrating her own story and it felt as though it brought some depth and meaning to it that someone else couldn’t have.
As a child I was a bookworm and as an adult I’ve found as much joy in people as I do books....well almost. And I’m glad I’m called Cordelia than ‘Anne with an e’

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Do yourself a favour buy this book

I found myself lost in childhood memory and laughing out loud so often that my husband thought I was having a small fit.
Lucy’s ability to take you back to those days when the great joy in the world was a new fresh book that was yours alone is unique.
I have gone on to buy all her book and she must now write faster to keep up with my need to listen to her voice .
An absolute classic for all .

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I loved it

What a wonderful and funny book. I haven't read as extensively as Lucy Mangan but that didn't spoil the enjoyment of hearing her years of bookwormery discovery; I often got looks as I commuted in as I realised that I was laughing out loud.

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2 people found this helpful