Lucy Mangan still has all her childhood books. “They made me who I am,” she says. Quite so, neatly put, and placing her amid the elite of those who recognise the seminal nature of childhood reading. In her case, it has made her a trenchant and witty Guardian journalist, and the owner of 10,000 books; a child reader becomes a reading adult. And, here, it turns her into the author of an engaging critique and survey of her reading matter during those crucial formative years.