Choosing your next read can be tough, so we ask Awen Libraries staff to recommend a book every month to help you pick yours.
This month, we asked Bryn and Neil what books have inspired them the most.
Bryn said: “One of my favourite books to recommend is A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. It is a wonderful book full of humour and pathos that provides a wonderful insight into human nature. On first picking the book up, I took an instinctive dislike to the main character as he struck me as the sort of nit-picking neighbour who, fifty years ago or so, would have been regularly writing letters to his local newspaper about the “youth of today” and “how they have no appreciation for elders and betters”.
“Two or three chapters later and I suddenly thought, “oh good grief, you’re going to make me like this grumpy git aren’t you”. I’ve recommended this book to any number of library users (and friends) and I will continue to do so. It’s also one of the rare occasions where the Hollywood adaptation of the film (“A man called Otto” starring Tom Hanks) is almost on a par with the source material”.
Neil said: “One of my favourite books to recommend is The Earthsea Quartet by Ursula Le Guin. The long life and travels of the Wizard Ged through the world of Earthsea is a story that couples both the light and the dark in a magically embedded world full of wonder and danger. It is a soulful, sensitive and sincerely written story which makes the reading of it emotionally and philosophically enriching”.
