The Gifts of Reading by Robert Macfarlane: book review

The Gifts of Reading (2017) begins in the year 2000 in Beijing, China.

The British author teaches English literature in a university in Beijing. His colleague Don, from California, visits him a couple of years later in the author’s home city of Cambridge in England. Don gifts Robert a book as gratitude for his kindness.

Not all books that are given as gifts are transformative, but this one is for Robert. After reading this book left as a gift, Robert has ‘a yearning or wistful longing for the unknown and the mysterious’ – to walk into adventure.

The author considers his top five books that, over the years since receiving his gift, he has given away. He talks about the emotive experiences that these five books have given him that he hopes to impart to others.

So, this short, reflective, essay-style novella, is the author’s rationale and reasoning for book gift-giving. He discusses the connection between the giver and the receiver, and the third party – the author of the gift-given book. And, of course, he encourages his readers to give books as a gift to others.

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MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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