francis spufford is a british journalist whom i had assumed to be a woman because, on first receiving a book written by him, the nature of which book i had quickly discerned and associated with women writers, i had read frances spufford on the cover, so when i opened the book on the train and discovered my frances was a francis i was completely distraught, a feeling that lasted till i got into the second chapter. my sense of distress comes in part from making the assumption that the author was going to be nice, as most writers of these autobiographical essays on reading tend to be, in the way that anne fadiman strikes you as being a likeable woman. francis spufford is not nice. there is a certain hardness about him that disappointed me because the woman i'd got on the train would be womanly conspiratorial suddenly turned around and became a man, all sharp intelligence without pleasantness, an impression which the first chapter reinforced. the first chapter is probably the weakest of the book, and you had to begin on the second before his brilliance and wit and gift is unleashed on you. but once in his second essay, i never wanted him to stop writing, i wanted him to tell me more, to make more connections, to expedite his knowledge in his very smart and urbane voice.

the experience of reading spufford is very different from reading people like jack zipes, whom i dislike and sometimes disagree with, or alison lurie, whom i like but am impatient with. with zipes you felt he was a famous academic, these days *the* man in children's literature, but who has long forgotten the thrill of being a child reading while all the time expounding on the function of children's literature. with lurie, you felt she was closer to us but wasting her intelligence being general and fluffy. with spufford, you knew you were in company with the right man. reading on the train i wanted to react every moment, to share my book with someone, and to respond. one of the great pleasures of reading a good essay is that not only do you respond instantly, but that you begin to form your reactions back in continuous prose, i shut the book frequently on my place-marking finger to think neat paragraphs back at him. he wasn't train reading. he was what i should have been reading at home, with a laptop beside me to send out my thoughts, too late now, i'm back home and i've finished the book, and i couldn't update my journal at addy's.

his book is, in addition to being some very brilliant essays, a sort of childhood memoir through his childhood books, and his voice is adult, but familiar in the way the narrator in winterson's oranges and harper lee's mockingbird or even alan robson talking about himself was. you knew immediately he was one of us. but to say he was one of us is misleading. rather, i desired to be one of his people. i have neither his literariness nor intelligence. my appetite for books is more personal, and children's lit is too personal for me to write about in an intelligent way. critics of the book want more of the memoir, less of the essay, but that is precisely what i like about this book. give me the ideas in your brilliant voice; i don't care what you did in college. that, as he says on the last page, is none of our business. it seems that there are more and more autobiographical books on the subject of what anne fadiman calls bibliophilia, and though they're all variations on a theme you couldn't be sick of them. they are funny and by bookish people for bookish people and they made you feel you belong, they fluffed your ego somewhat too. spufford's book does that too, but the essay comes first, and it's a splendid book for that.

francis spufford is a guy i’d like to write more about, but i’m harassed so i can’t. francis spufford has a lovely bit on his imagined vegetable holocaust that took place in roman britain, but there's no time to summarise it. read the book for yourself. it's called "the child that books built" and no, it's not in paperback yet, alas.