Two days without blogging. Hmm. Definitely puts me in the could do better category, but I've got the cyber equivalent of a note from home because I've been spending my time unpacking my books, which is a kind of literary activity all of its own. I've only got as far as M - I'm one of those sad muppets who arranges all their fiction alphabetically, mostly because it means everything is easy to find, but also because I like the careless geometry of the shelves that way: ancient hardbacks crammed in next to gleaming new large format paperbacks and nicotine-coloured old style Penguins. I also like the unexpected literary alliances which find Hilary Mantel next to Maupassant and John Fowles and Jonathan Franzen keeping company.
I packed them all away in April, many, many months ago, so there's been something of a reunion going on. My house -- and my life -- has seemed unfurnished without them and now that all those stories are sleeping softly on my shelves again, I feel rehabilitated. I've been coming across books I haven't read at all and ones that inexplicably I've bought two copies of. Then there's all the treasure that slips out from long unopened pages - postcards, bookmarks, letters. (I once found a surgical mask in a book I borrowed from Camden library.)
The reason I'm going on about it so, is that as writers we need people to value books, and what's more, to read them. so perhaps this weekend, instead of doing some kind of writing, perhaps you could rootle through your own collection and find a book you've always meant to read, but haven't, and set to work on it....
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