Wise Words: Hackney elders recommend
We asked some of our elders and Community Library Service customers to share a book that they think are worth sharing with younger generations.
Here is a great selection of reads, with something for everyone...
One Day Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This
Omar El Akkad
I learnt more than I expected and it made me a more rounded human being. Whatever lessons one can learn from anti-racist training and lived experience is here transferred to an area I had previously neglected. Like EM Forster’s A Passage to India and Family of Man by Edward Steichen, it made a lasting impression on me.
Recommended by: Anonymous CLS Customer
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll
My father gave it to me when I was a child and I’ve loved it ever since. I’m an artist and I’ve always liked childlike stories and pictures. In 2009 I had a little part in a film of Alice in Wonderland as the White Rabbit. People said I stole the show! I’ve always loved books and reading. I hope libraries never go out of fashion. I could sit in them all day and read.
Recommended by: Linda, CLS Customer
Silent Spring
Rachel Carson
I was really shocked by this in my young adult years in the 1960s. I hadn’t realised the planet might be fragile and that man might be responsible for ruining it. That book was really ahead of its time, the precursor of the ecology movement, and it was deeply worrying; it affected me for years afterwards. I wonder if it’s something people still read and react to, or is it now considered too old-fashioned?
Recommended by: Yvonne, CLS Customer
Ross Poldark
Winston Graham
I’ve always loved these books – everything by Winston Graham. At my age, I want a story you don't expect. Growing up, I had older sisters who gave me the habit of reading. AJ Cronin is another favourite author of mine. He wrote the Dr Finlay books. When I’m reading a good book, I almost don’t want to finish it!
Recommended by: Rebecca, CLS Customer
Paradise
Abdulrazak Gurnah
Lots of books have influenced my life. This choice is one the Community Library Service sent me. It still resonates with me – it’s a beautiful, moving book. Through young Yusuf, we journey through the complexities and trade routes of pre-colonial East Africa.
Recommended by: Vinnie, CLS Customer
The Jungle Book
Rudyard Kipling
The book that made the greatest impression on me as a child was The Jungle Book. One Christmas I got given two identical copies by relatives, and read them in turn, a chapter at a time. The illustrations were dramatic and the idea of a child living in an animal’s world was thrilling. I loved being able to live in that world for a while through Kipling’s stories.
Recommended by: Christina, CLS Customer
I Can’t Stay Long
Laurie Lee
Yummy little essays: bonnes bouches of delicious lyrical prose, sometimes more whimsical or capricious than you might imagine, from every part of Laurie Lee’s life. For me as an aspiring writer, this was an inspiration and a formidable exercice de style.
Recommended by: Stephen, CLS Customer
1984
George Orwell
A leviathan which rises over us on so many levels. Eternally prescient; but becoming more horribly relevant with each passing day. The trouble is that, as Orwell grasped, when you erode language and cultural memory beyond a critical point, your audience cannot even understand what it is you have to say. They do not know the words. And that, too, is coming to pass.
Recommended by: Stephen, CLS Customer
East West Street
Philippe Sands
A heartfelt and inspirational book weaving personal memories and family history. Sands revisits the Nuremberg Trials and examines the origins of genocide and crimes against humanity, set within the context of his own family’s past.
While covering one of the most significant events of the 20th Century, it reads like a thriller, and is highly relevant to the times we live in today – I think people should read it.
Recommended by: Susan, CLS Customer
Evelyn Waugh
Brideshead Revisited
I first read it when I was 14 and I still have the same copy on my shelves now. I’ve reread it so many times. There’s just something about the characters and the time the story depicts. Another one would be Another Country by James Baldwin, which is utterly different. I can’t imagine not having both these books on my shelves.
Recommended by: Meriel, CLS Customer