Abandoned by user

This is the fourth bookish memoir I've read in about two weeks - for some reason I am presently obsessed with them, and when a reading obsession occurs, one must simply give in.

This is by far the best of the four and I would venture a guess that I will have to look long and hard to find one that I enjoy more. Susan Hill is a writer, best known for her ghost story, The Woman in Black, who also writes a mystery series. She grew up around writers, went to Oxford, and has encountered men like T.S. Eliot and E.M. Forster at parties or in libraries.

There is a lot of literary name-dropping here, which might come off as conceited, except I was so enthralled by her voice that it didn't feel that way to me. She is extraordinarily well read, and lives in an old British farmhouse that is simply filled with books in every room. The sort of home that I have always wanted to live in. The sort of home I plan to create once I am actually retired. I've already told my husband that when we move into our last house, I want a library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a rolling library ladder. He is on board with this plan, so long as he can have his own tap room. 

I think, actually, that Susan Hill might be living my life.

Anyway, I bought this from Abebooks for $3.75 and it was the best $3.75 I've spent on a book in donkey's years. I expect that I will return to it again and again during those times when nothing in my library really sounds appealing. If you're a fan of bookish memoirs, give this one a try and maybe you'll like as much as I did.

I'm knocking off one star because she prefers Dickens to Trollope, which is clearly an error. Trollope is the superior Victorian.