I have always loved the story my parents tell of my childhood; that I slept with books under my pillow. Each night they would tidy away my books but each morning they would wake to find another pile of books. I’m not sure if I would read them through the night or if I just put them there to colour my dreams but it’s a passion that has stayed with me for life! I even achieved a diploma in bookselling whilst working part time in a bookstore to help me through university.
With work so busy I don’t have as much time to read as I would like, however, I still fall asleep most nights with a book in my hand. I’ve started to notice a trend in my reading pattern where I’m getting hooked on male authors writing about life and love. I blame Tony Parsons and his 1999 novel Man and Boy.
It was probably the first book, excluding the classics, written by a male author that I really connected with. It’s a simple story about a Man who cheats on his wife and consequently finds himself a single parent. You get to know Harry Silver as he turns 30, gets to know his 4 year old son and learns the trials and tribulations of dating with a child in tow.
This is a sweeping generalisation but I tend to find female authors can be guilty of creating the kind of characters that we all long to meet in real life. Mr Perfect. I find the honesty that Tony Parsons writes with is refreshing. Harry Silver is far from a perfect man but as I got to know him I fell for him harder than the idea of the perfect man and when he did inevitably make mistakes I found myself much more forgiving. One of those books that you slow down reading at the end because you know you’ll miss the characters being in your life. Luckily it doesn’t end there as you can follow Harry to Man and Wife and Men from the Boys.
I read this book years ago but thought of it a lot whilst reading David Nicholls One Day but that's for another day...
fee x
