fourth edition

If you look at the “Now Reading” bit in the sidebar, you can see that I’m tearing through the novels at the moment. Five novels thus far this month and that is not even counting Douglas Coupland’s jPod which I finished just around the 2007-2008 shift. I’ll be honest with you: I do not have much else to do at the moment than gulp down books.

Currently I am signed off work by my doctor because I keep having blackouts followed by muscle spasms. It’s been like that for, oh, five weeks? On good days I can make it across the road to Tesco (and have a wee three-hour nap afterwards). On bad days I have to stay in bed and do as little as I can possibly manage. So I read.

I attempted reading Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle early this month but it was too absurd for someone whose life has become increasingly surreal these past few weeks. Instead I snuggled up with Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch which seemed soothing - except the themes haunted my mind for ages afterwards. A read which crept up on me. My boyfriend bought me Susanna Clarke’s mammoth Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell which I had attempted to read years before. This time I relaxed into its deliberately slow pace and savoured every sentence.

And then I realised I had been bitten by the reading bug once more. A fantastic feeling after having finished three books in the past six months.

Lucy Eyre’s If Minds Had Toes and Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing followed in quick succession. And today I finished Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (and what an ace read that was!). I have a long list of books I’d love to read and a parcel of amazon.co.uk is making its way as we speak.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like being ill. But I dread to think how I’d manage the Current Situation if I didn’t read. What would I do? Watch paint dry or - even worse - UK daytime TV?