If there’s one thing guaranteed to well me up as quickly as the thought of old people freezing in the winter, it’s the thought of people burning books. So you can probably imagine how unhappy I was to spot this article in the Guardian over lunch.

There have been reports that pensioners from Swansea, Wales have resorted to buying cheap tomes from charity shops then setting them alight in an attempt to stay warm. The plunging temperatures and snowy skies have hit many things hard, I honestly never thought that books would be one of them though!

While there are plenty of books out there that I personally consider trash, there’s something about the thought of novels in flame that gives me a bit of an internal punch. However, I guess if I was freezing to the point of potential illness I’d maybe get over my lit-related squeamishness.