Amos Oz's early reading

I started to read almost on my own, when I was very young. What else did we have to do? The evenings were much longer then, because the earth revolved more slowly, because the galaxy was much more relaxed than it is today. The electric light was a pale yellow, and it was interrupted by the many power cuts. To this day the smell of smoky candles or a sooty paraffin lamp makes me want to read a book.

Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness (Orlando: Harvest, 2005) (trans. Nicholas de Lange), p. 21.