Six virtues of good reading - and how to get the most out of books
(Independent.ie Books)

I begin with the hunger of Albert Camus. The philosopher, novelist and playwright was born in French Algeria, living for much of his childhood in a home without electricity or running water. No oven - just an alcohol stove. No toilets - just holes in the masonry. And no father: his dad, Lucien, was killed by shrapnel when Camus was a baby. In The First Man, Camus wrote of his mother Catherine`s `gnarled` hands, broken by years of scrubbing floors and wringing laundry. He described his grandmother`s whip, the bull pizzle, used when the boy did not obey.