I have a strange habit that appears when I am depressed because of the miserable weather (i.e. January in the UK) and when I am too busy with work.
I only ever notice that I am doing when either the weather improves or I suddenly find I have loads of spare time because I’m no longer working on whatever project I was working on. And that habit is: I buy loads of books.
I get really interesting and excited about new subjects and search out and buy the best book on it that I can find in order to read it later. So imagine my surprise when last night I reached for the book by the side of the bed and hit a whole pile of them. In all seriousness, I hadn’t noticed them build up.
Anyway, here are the books I shall be working my way through this time:
- Dogs and Lampposts – Autobiog of ex-tabloid editor Richard Stott (halfway through, interesting but not a classic)
- Bleak House – Charles Dickens. The old classic. Link: It covers an excrutiatingly long court case, like the Sex.com battle
- Berlin – Anthony Beever. It’s still hasn’t been read. Too fat, probably.
- Bad Thoughts – Jamie Whyte. Book bought for me because of my constant rants about corrupt and phoney logic.
- Colossus – Paul Gannon. Computers, British secrets, WWII, who could resist?
- Arafat – Tony Walker/Andrew Gowers. Another one been waiting to be read.
- Tom Paine: A political life – John Keane. Part of a new series in my mind of banned books.
- The Housekeeper’s Diary – Wendy Berry. Book banned in the UK for covering the disintegration of Charles and Diana’s marriage.
- Spy Catcher – Peter Wright. Classic banned book in UK over MI5.
- Born to Steal – Gary Weiss. The mafia scams in Wall Street
- The Best Thing That Can Happen to a Croissant – Pablo Tusset. A recommendation.
And then I can start buying new ones…