“If your memory was OK you could descend upon on a bookshop – a big enough one so that the staff wouldn’t hassle a browser – and steal the contents of books by reading them. I drank down 1984 while loitering in the 'O' section of the giant Heffers store in Cambridge. When I was full I carried the slopping vessel of my attention carefully out of the shop.” IfsBookEnoughBigsReadingMemoriesAttentionStoresStealingGiantsShopsStaffSectionsVesselDrankCambridgeBookshopsHassleBrowsers Author:Francis Spufford
“I can always tell when you're reading somewhere in the house,' my mother used to say. 'There's a special silence, a reading silence.” I CanUsedMotherReadingHouseSilenceSpecial Author:Francis Spufford
“Goblins burrowed in the earth, elves sang songs in the trees: Those were the obvious wonders of reading, but behind them lay the fundamental marvel that, in stories, words could command things to be.” StoriesEarthSongReadingBehindsWonderTreeFundamentalsLaysObviousCommandGoblin Author:Francis Spufford
