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#bookadayuk Hooked you into reading: The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen and The Brothers Grimm

For those of you who have been following the #bookaday posts, I’ve been up in the Alps for a week. I’m back and refuelled, and will pick up with the posts and get back to writing. We drove the length of the Grossglockner Pass, which is the highest and one of the most beautiful roads in Europe. Here are a few photos before I write about what hooked me in to reading. It seems fitting that the photos are of Europe, the home of the writers I want to talk about.

I was influenced by so many great authors throughout my childhood. While I enjoyed Enid Blyton, Judy Blume and Noel Streatfeild early on, what hooked me in to reading was primarily fairy tales. I loved Hans Christian Andersen’s The Princess and the Pea and, although I wouldn’t necessarily subscribe to the Happy Ever After endings, there was something magical about the idea of anyone being able to feel a pea beneath layers of mattresses. Children often want to believe the unbelievable, don’t they? Think Peter Pan, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; or, in my case, The Lochness Monster, the Abominable Snowman and the Tooth Fairy. The first two exist, don’t they? Anything implausible, I believed in it. Such was my hopeless and incorrigible imagination. The thing is children want to believe in unreality, they want a world beyond the real and the plausible. And I think adults sometimes look for the same thing. It’s why we read fiction.

And then there were the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales: Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella. I devoured them all, utterly absorbed in another world. Hansel and Gretel grabbed my attention for the suspense as the children become lost in the woods. I liked the idea of a house made of sweets, and was always captivated by images of the roof. I have started to make a European gingerbread house at Christmas, a tradition in Germany which comes from this story.

In Germany, there’s a rhyme that’s said about Gingerbread Houses that comes directly from the story of Hansel and Gretel:

Knusper, knusper, knäuschen,
wer knuspert an meinem Häuschen?
Der Wind, der Wind,
das himmlische Kind.

English Translation:

Nibble, nibble, gnaw
Who is nibbling at my little house?
The wind, the wind
The heavenly child.

I’ll also throw in Joseph Jacob’s Jack and the Beanstalk. A giant at the top of a beanstalk? Really? These imaginary worlds are a wonderful escape from the real world and teach children about the far reaches of the imagination. And you are never too old to read them.

Einstein said, “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” While I am certainly no genius, I find his quote interesting because it suggests a link between the imagination and the intellect. What are your thoughts?

#bookaday One that makes me laugh: Notes from a Small Island

This particular #bookaday challenge made me realise how few books have really made me laugh. I think most book that leave their mark do so because they are suspenseful, melancholy, shocking or thought-provoking. Few are actually laugh-out-loud funny.

Bryson’s Notes on a Small Island is insightful and well observed. His wit keeps you turning the pages and I identified with his observations all the more now that I am living abroad. I see England and its people differently.

Bill Bryson was born in Iowa and spent 20 years in England before moving back. He says, “I had recently read that 3.7 million Americans according to a Gallup poll, believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another, so it was clear that my people needed me.”

This is typical of his style, able to make jokes lovingly and without overtly pointing a finger or causing offence. I enjoyed this. It was a gift, which makes it more special.

#bookadayuk A book you pretend to have read. I haven’t. And a confession about Romeo and Juliet

Why would you pretend to have read a book? I’ve never lied about what I have read, because what’s the point? I do have a confession, though. We studied Shakespeare at school. I first read his work at the age of eleven and struggled with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Then at fifteen we looked at Romeo and Juliet as one of our GCSE texts. I struggled with romantic books then, and I still do in a way. Somehow, the whole forbidden love element of the story didn’t grab my attention. So I listened to the discussions, read the notes and miraculously managed to get a good grade in English Literature, despite never having read the whole text.

I later saw Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation but I struggled with this, too. I can understand why it was popular and I think he has an amazing eye for what works, but it was too overly dramatic for me. It wasn’t until we studied Othello that I really began to enjoy Shakespeare, and I made up for my sad lack of reading Romeo and Juliet by reading Othello three times! There was something about the darkness of Iago, and his persistence that held my attention. I saw a production of the play a few years ago at the Donmar Warehouse and was equally captivated. Both plays are tragedies but the effect they both had on me were vastly different.

Here is an interesting video of Ewan McGregor talking about the character of Iago in the play:

Do you have any favourite Shakespeare plays?

Or have you pretended to read something that you haven’t actually read?

#bookaday Second hand bookshop gem: War and Peace

My second hand bookshop gem has to be a charity shop copy of War and Peace. Still unfinished, though. #bookadayuk

#bookadayUK The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

This is a short #bookaday post today as I’ve already posted photos of yesterdays trip to Sopron, Hungary. Today’s #bookaday challenge is to choose a book that reminds you of someone you love. My husband bought and read this to me on our honeymoon. I love being read to (although it doesn’t happen often), and the magical settings of the book and the nature of the holiday at the time has burned this story into my memory. I look forward to going back and rereading it someday.

The Alchemist was first published in Portuguese in 1988, written by Brazilian born Coelho, and has been translated into 56 languages. It follows the story of a young Andalusian shepherd named Santiago in his journey to Egypt, after having a recurring dream of finding treasure there.

The book is an international bestseller and has sold more than 65 million copies worldwide. It has become one of the best-selling books in history, setting the Guinness World Record for most translated book by a living author.

It’s not necessarily my favourite book but it is evocative and full of imagery, and the memories of hearing the story are what remains.