I lived in Manchester around the same time for a while and there's so much more I wanted to know (a sequel on football would be nice!

Educated in a brutal comprehensive school where any sign of braininess had to be carefully concealed. There is so much I could say about this author, the book, how much I enjoyed it, related to it, etc. Although Hodkinson and I have very different taste in reading material, I recognised the relationship he has with his books; they are a place of refuge and safety away from a complicated world.

This is a funny, charming and delight to soak up, an unashamed celebration of a working class life/childhood and all of the simple and profound pleasures it brings along with it. That was something that I learned from my mother, from teachers at Balderstone Community School, and from life. Hodkinson recaptures all the innocence, joy and magic of childhood and the seemingly endless curiosity and adventure that comes along with it, and of course there is a long list of delightful authors, titles and bands to hunt down afterwards too.

It is not just about books though, it is about his take on life and is full of the happy and sad memories he still carries with him.He is excellent on the snobbery and narrow mindedness which has continued to dominate and dictate the publishing industry since its inception and captures all too well the self-serving, self-conviction and self-delusion which sees these self-appointed gatekeepers and their cliques to tell the rest of the world what good books are, and who they are for. All the way through the book he punctuates his life story with snapshots of his grandfather and the life that he had. No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy (2022) is initially concerned with Mark’s childhood in the mid 1970s.

A recent house move involved 100 boxes of books and so I could relate completely to the opening scene where the author is moving house and friends and family helping with the move ask him why he has so many books and how many he has. In late May, I was reading a sports article about the upcoming FA Cup Final between Man City and Man United. This is an impassioned hymn of praise and declaration of love for that complex cultural object, the book.I can’t be bothered giving much more time to this self-centred monologue, so I’ll just say that that “awful school” inspired me - three post-graduate degrees, a life of working with disadvantaged communities, shelves (and a Kindle) full of books (including Tolstoy); and never did it let down either my brother or my sister- or anyone else I knew. You'd struggle to enjoy this unless you grew up in the 70s in the north of England, and slightly resent it. Also, while as a bookish girl I was often derided or treated with suspicion, the author also struggled with those who saw it as a less manly passtime and, like me, he was told to get out more or informed reading so much would leave him needing glasses.

His dad kept it on top of a wardrobe with other items of great worth – wedding photographs and Mark’s National Cycling Proficiency certificate. Photograph: Mark Hodkinson View image in fullscreen ‘A dreamer’: Mark Hodkinson and family at Hollingworth Lake, Rochdale, in the 1970s. I was amassing rather a "collection" of books too, but soon realised that some books I had kept purely for the sake of it, as opposed to them bringing me real joy, hence my recent and ongoing book culling!

He describes Billy Casper, urchin-like hero of A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines (a late kitchen sink work), as “half-boy, half-pigeon”. His description of his various To Be Read piles was also nifty - shame his taste in books and mine don't match. He was quite unusual in trying to find books in out of way places and came across a lot of characters as he slowly began to read and acquire books. Mark Hodkinson is one of the great unsung heroes of literature … With verve, insight and perfectly-captured period detail, he reminds us that not only are books sacred objects that should be available to everyone, but also that working-class voices remain more marginalised and underrepresented than ever.