Ian Patterson is a poet and an academic. He spent the last 20 years as a senior lecturer in English Literature at Cambridge. He has also been a teacher, a bookseller, an activitist, editor and translator. And all aspects of his experience are brought to the fore in this book.

He explores how books have shaped his life and urges us all to value and retain books in society as a whole, whether in our own reading and collections of books or in support of public and private libraries.

This work is a collection of essays looking at detective fiction, poetry, authors as wide ranging as Jilly Cooper and Proust, Hardy and Blake, as well as memories of Enid Blyton. Something for every reading taste here.

The book gives us peeks into Ian's personal story - he was married to the writer Jenny Diski and now lives with the critic and writer Olivia Laing in Suffolk where he is immersed in local activities and concerns.

But above all Ian shares his thoughts, opinions and insights. He urges the reader to look to poetry to know ourselves better, to enjoy the puzzles in translation and to consider reading as a necessity, not a luxury, in life.