While at my daughter's home I happened to read a Western and that brought back a flood of memories of the books I read while at school. I took books from our school library, occasionally from the library of the club my father was a member of, but most of all from Oxford Book House on Park Street, which had a lending library in those days--apart form the book store. I think I haunted that place.
My reading tastes were totally eclectic. They ranged from Westerns--mostly Zane Grey, to World War II stories, mainly the Western theatre of war and particularly books about the RAF, books by Gerald Durrell ( Iread all his books that I could lay my hands on then), some of the classics for girls--Jane Eyre and Lousia Alcott's books, to books by Barbara Cartland. It was also important for me to research the background of stories I read, for which there was the Encyclpedia Brittanica in school.
But it was my intense interest in the Air Force stories that even got to me after a bit. So much so at one point I was sure that I must be a re-incarnation of an RAF fighter pilot!!!! I even wrote a couple of chapters of a story based on an RAF pilot in the first person.
I hadn't thought of all that in a long while, till I read this Western. Now, when I look back, I can't imagine how I read all those books. I suppose they were unusual books for a 14 year old girl to read!
But I must say that whatever series I was going through, I got most of what I wanted from Oxford Library. It really was an amazing place.