Whenever I'm feeling a bit flat or harbouring the suspicion that life has let me down (I'm paraphrasing someone there but fricked if I can remember who) I have a simple solution. It’s not quite as good for me as a vomit-inducingly wholesome country walk or anything but neither is it quite as self destructive as pumping myself full of drugs. Basically I spend money. Specifically I seem to spend money on books.
My bookshelf is full of sad little clusters of books I haven’t read - most of them probably purchased during just such a pick-me-up mission, ranging from the this-is-happy-so-it-will-cheer-me-up genre to the misery-loves-company collection. I even have, squirrelled away somewhere to my eternal shame, a nifty collection of self-help books, purchased during a moment of madness when I thought I might be going actually clinically mad instead of just being a weirdo.
There is something about buying books that is a great mood lifter and it's different to the semi-euphoria of purchasing a coat that I can convince myself makes me look like Audrey Tatou. Finding and aquiring such a coat is indeed great (at least until I look in the mirror and find the effect to be more Enid Blyton's Moonface than Parisian minx) but buying books, however many times I do it, makes me feel like I am changing my life. Strange and disturbing, I know, but if you don't know that I'm both of those things who are you and why are you reading my blog?
Anyway, I do have a few ‘to read’ books scribbled down on a piece of paper… somewhere safe I’m sure, but I’m appealing for suggestions from any genre, any author and any style. What have you got?
UPDATE: I have just spent a large squage of cash I don't have on books I don't technically need and yet I feel no shame. I'm also officially going into hermit mode to get some serious reading done - I am not at home to callers... unless they're bringing me some booze to lubricate the whole process.
3 comments:
"My dreams, watching me said, one to another - this life has let us down."
Paul Potts
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L x
I torture the Smoo often by making him wait while I trawl through shelves at second hand book stores looking for that one item that will change my life. I get so excited when I leave with a couple of books.
As someone who is halfway through reading three books at the present moment I probably shouldn't be talking about to read piles. But mine is about 10 books deep. And right now I can't for the life of me remember what might be in it.
Thanks Lindsay - I know you would know it. I am now chock-full of suggestions (thanks NL in particular) and kicking it off with some Waugh, some Dickens (heaven forfend!) and a bunch of other stuff. Hurrah - I feel better already.
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