Your Honour, I confess!

I have a huge problem! HUGE!!! My crime? I cannot stop buying books! Honestly, I think I have a book-buying disease. I swear only last night as I was fishing around my shelves for my next book I decided that I need to stop this madness once and for all. Why did I decide this? Because I found myself surrounded by a pile of several hundred books and they were all crying my name and pleading “pick me, pick me!”. Oh my poor, poor neglected books: my heart broke for them all lying there staring up at me praying that they would be the chosen one. So there it was: my new hard-core resolution!

“Thou shalt not buy any more books until thy hast read at least 10 of said several hundred already owned.”

Well, I felt empowered! Yes, I thought adamantly, I will do this! Strong like bear!!!!

So what is my problem I hear you cry? I’ll tell you what: today I was up in Newcastle for some client meetings with a colleague and we found ourselves with 2 hours spare in the middle of the day. Now, I’m not familiar with Newcastle at all, so Alex told me to meet him in the centre of town and we could grab some lunch in the sun (yes, the SUN!) before our next meeting. Great idea, I thought. Anyway, there we were chatting away while walking down the main street and Alex bumps into someone he knows and they start talking. Instead of standing there like a lemon I start to look around and take in my surroundings and guess where we were stood right outside? I swear, Your Honour, that it wasn’t in any way engineered. Honestly, this must have been what the Three Wise Men felt when they looked up and saw that glowing star and just knew they had to follow it. There it was – the huge W, winking down at me like a huge beacon of light, calling me to follow.  Waterstones – my holy grail! In my daze I barely even remember telling Alex that I would meet him at the next meeting and before I knew it I was inside this emporium of treasures. Here I am, my lovelies, here’s mama!

There is something so comforting about being in a bookshop that only other bookaholics will understand – it’s my home from home. Infact, given the choice I would rather live there than in my actual home. So as I wondered and admired and cooed and the temptation grew stronger and stronger I thought to myself  “maybe just one – I deserve it; afterall it is a Tuesday”. So I browse some more cradling my one book like a newborn babe, and then “oh, maybe just one more; afterall I have driven 2½ hours already and will have to drive the same back home again, so it’s only right that I should compensate for my lengthy car journeys with 2 books”. I browse a bit more, still cradling the twins, and finally “no, really I should have 3 – afterall it’s Wednesday tomorrow and everyone knows that Wednesday is the worst day of the week ‘cos you feel like you’ve been at work for ever but really you’ve still got 3 days to the weekend so to cheer myself up from these inevitible midweek blues, I really should buy three!”

And that, mi’ Lord, is how I came to end up with these three beauties:

My babies

Sylvia’s Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell (‘cos I just read North and South and loved it)

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (‘cos I’ve heard it’s really cheesily over the top and that makes me want to read it!)

by Alexandre Dumas fils (‘cos my French friend Virginie recommended it)

La Dame aux Camelias 

And here are those books again, this time with my other fame-hungry cat The Boof:

My other baby - The Boof