Holiday reading (1)

How do you choose what books to read on holiday? Do you save up books you have purchased or received as gifts over the past year so you can feast on them on holiday? Do you pick up books in charity shops so you can leave them behind and lighten the load in your suitcase when you return home? Maybe you rely on your hotel or youth hostel having a "library" (sometimes just a shelf) where you can borrow and/or deposit books.

My summer reading tends to contain all three of the above elements. This summer my serendipitous reading included a couple of books I picked up from just such a holidaymaker's library. One was Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger by Nigel Slater - an autobiographical sketch of his childhood. While I found the writing funny, poignant and disturbing, I enjoyed the way a number of his food memories resonated with me (i.e. the days when lemonade lorries visited weekly and the great Angel Delight vs Instant Whip debate).