There were very few books in our house.
They were kept in a glass fronted case the way the good china was - and they were used about as often.
I never read any of them but it is funny how I know the names of the authors and can recall the colouring and typography of the spines. All seemed to have a cricketer's love of initials - D. K. Broster, H. V. Morton, A. J. Cronin. Later I had a relative say to me: 'What you want to read is those Reader's Digest Classics. They cut out all the rubbish and you're left with pure classic.'
My Grandmother or my Great Aunt used to read to my brother and me. A chapter a night - mostly of Enid Blyton - once Coral Island and Kidnapped. By myself at Secondary School l think I succeeded in finishing just the one book - The Woodlanders. My own reading was mostly William books and Biggles. Even by A levels I don't think I had finished a serious book. I'd read bits. Needless to say I failed my A level English.
The change in my reading habits came about just after I left school when a friend gave me The Brothers Karamazov to read and I blundered my way through it. It was a crucial experience to live in a book for three or four weeks (my lips still moved when I read); to read in the toilet, in work, in the bus, in bed; to realize that something was happening between the printed words and me.
Another important thing about this time was to hear Michael McLaverty (no relation) give a talk on the short story. His enthusiasm was palpable and it led me to read his own work and the work of the writers he admired. Since then I have had a growing love of the short story and make no apologies for including so many collections in my choice of books. It is to the novel what the string quartet is to the symphony.
When I was teaching here on Islay the library facilities were poor and I brought a lot of books from my own house to the school. Just before I left there was a small fire in a store next to my room and the bookshelves were destroyed. Here, along with a few new ones, are the books I felt I had to replace -although you can never replace the underlinings and the tea rings.
My respect for books as things-to-own is balanced by a sneaking admiration for a friend's uncle who, spoiled with a great library at home in the days before paperbacks, would tear out a few pages of poetry and carry them to the top of Cave Hill where he would read them and chuck them into the wind.

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