The child that books built

What would you find if you went back and reread all of your favourite books from childhood?

Francis Spufford discovers both delight and sadness, in this memoir.

Re-reading and re-living these books, and investigating their literary origins and rich histories, Francis Spufford reveals what it was like to be an obsessive reader as a child.

As the book unfolds, so too he gradually uncovers his own childhood and his unique reason for taking refuge in stories from a world full of unbearable knowledge.