A very nice gentleman who’s upping sticks and taking himself across the world in search of new literary fields let me adopt a whole family of his books last week, I’ve been looking after the little darlings to the best of my ability ever since.

Our adoptive process started as I crouched in front of the pile he’d collected and selected those that I could find a home for. I had to judge these fragile things on a number of merits, but none of them were fair and I felt bad for those left behind. All I could do was hope that some other person would open their home and arms to them.

Once I’d amassed a stack, we carefully packed them into a large paper bag. There were far more than I meant to take, but somehow we loaded my arms and I set off into the misty night to re-home the pseudo-orphans. We were nearing my destination when I realised the dampness in the air was disintegrating the paper bag holding them and thus I ended my journey clutching a cascade of escaping books to my chest.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t going straight home that day, so the poor things have been temporarily housed in a spare drawer of Ink’s. Soon I’ll find them their own shelf space though, or at least a place in the stacks on my own floor.

In the meantime, I’ve given my attention to The Fahrenheit Twins by Michel Faber, the deliciously terrifying Hunger by Knut Hamsun – the Sverre Lyngstad translation – and am moving onto Muriel Spark’s Memento Mori, ah the reading responsibilities and delights that come with accepting new books into your family. 🙂