Elizabeth’s Reviews > Bequest of Wings: A Family's Pleasure with Books > Status Update

In this nature chapter, Duff references a new-to-me Gissing novel called The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft and W.N.P. Barbellion’s The Journal of a Disappointed Man, which I just came across in my nature writing book for the first time. Must look into both.

Actually chapter 10 is my favorite because it’s all about food in books! 😂

“Ever since our daughter began to read on her own, we have observed that the books about real life that have made the deepest impression on her have been the ones in which food plays a very definite part. Children understand about eating…” (122).

Love the chapter Fun With Words: “We have talked about how the English language has grown in scope and richness, like a river growing broader and deeper as tributary waters flow into it…the words that people used in times long gone to tell of important things have been gathered in and reshaped, like pebbles tossed about on the river’s bed” (93).

“We were as awkward a pair of parents as ever launched blithely on a career of exploring and developing human personality. But we knew without much discussion what our hope was for our children—that they should grow fully and robustly and merrily into a fine abundant life…” (14).