I was in Foyles yesterday afternoon. I need to contextualise that, don't I? Stop being so London-centric. Foyles is a large bookshop on the Charing Cross Road in central London. Right, so I was in Foyles, skimming the shelves for some holiday reading. The store relocated recently into the building next door to its original home, and the extra space means they've been able to squeeze in tons of new stock.
This presents a problem. I wasn't sure what I wanted to read, so being a methodical type, I started at A in the fiction section and carried on through the alphabet, making mental notes as I went as to books I fancied. The problem is I have thousands of improving books to read, and only so much time left before I go doolally due to old age.
This means I'm having to make some very tough decisions about new authors. I did think about tearing through most of Balzac, but he wrote ninety, fairly-hefty tomes. I estimate I'd have to give it a decade to get through them all. I don't think I can spare ten years at this stage in proceedings. I'm not exactly old, but I can't see the foothills of old on the horizon, and I don't want to devote the march up to them exclusively to one author, no matter how worthy and entertaining.
As it is I happened across a new author for me, Hermann Hesse. I picked-up a copy of Steppenwolf. It's serious stuff, but so far extremely compelling also. I am concerned it might turn me into even more of a sociopath, but that's why I'm tremendous fun to be around for the most part, my ability to take literary risks.
I was so taken with Steppenwolf that I started reading it immediately, even though I had another book on the go. I'm usually scrupulous in finishing one book prior to blowing the froth off another, but this time I couldn't wait. Hesse's unlikely bedfellow in the this case is P.G Wodehouse. And the book, "Meet Mr Mulliner", could not be lighter and more frivolous if it came with a free Labrador puppy.
No comments:
Post a Comment