Bookish meme

My lovely friend Deslily at Here, there and everywhere said she hoped I would do this meme - '7 random bookish things about me' - and as I'm always happy to natter about books, here goes.

1. I have this fantasy whereby I go somewhere totally peaceful for a holiday and do nothing but read. My ideal location would be a log cabin by a lake. England isn't exactly famous for such places so I'm thinking it would have to be somewhere in America or Scandinavia. It sounds idyllic, sitting outside the cabin with a lovely view over the lake and mountains just reading and snoozing and cooking something nice on BBQ for meals. Dream on.

2. Fantasy number two is being snowed in, in the middle of winter, in a cabin in the mountains, with Harrison Fo... I mean, um, 'loads of books' and nothing to do except read beside a roaring log fire, and make soup.

3. My tbr mountain is massive. I'm not that young any more and it seems I share with a few other bloggers the worry that I may not live long enough to finish my tbr pile but also, in my case, to read all of the books I want to read. I should stop buying books really so that the first worry might diminish a bit. Naturally, I won't or perhaps 'can't' because it is an addiction this book buying thing. Here's the current state of my tbr pile:





As you can see I'm having to shove them in between the books and the shelf above now. (Some of these have been read I should add.)

4. Which leads me to 'why' this addiction. It's a tough one to answer. I think possibly I have this inate curiosity about other people and their lives, the stories they have to tell etc. And books, fiction and non-fiction, feed that because that's what they are - people's lives between the covers of a book. I truly believe that all bookworms have this too and that's why we connect so well. We're all naturally curious and have, imo anyway, a special kind of intelligence and an enthusiasm for knowledge.

5. One of the real pleasures of my life these days is discussing books with my eight year old grandaughter. She is now reading some of the YA books that my daughter and her husband read and feel are suitable for her age group. At eight a little care still needs to be taken about content but she gobbled up the Narnia books for instance and adored them. I have a feeling that this little pleasure of mine is only going to increase as she gets older.

6. I'm really bad at starting new series of books. By that I mean that I have far too many on the go. I did a list the other day and found that I have 18 series started (fantasy, crime, novels) and 14 that I want to start at some stage. It's ridiculous. I have to blame someone so I blame partly my eldest daughter who reads YA fantasy and is always recommending new series, but also bloggers like Deslily, Nymeth and Darla who do exactly the same thing! Not to mention Danielle at A Work in Progress, with her wonderful crime and novel recs, and Booksplease, and Tara at Books and Cooks, and Elaine at Random Jottings who's responsible for the Mapp and Lucia thing and well... many others too numerous to mention but you'll know who you are I'm sure. Of course, it's mainly my own fault for not having the willpower to ignore these wonderful bookish posts...

7. And then there are charity shops of course. It seems I can't go anywhere without 'just popping in' to one or two to see what treasures they're concealing within. If Hubby is with me I just do one or two to prove I have some restraint. (HAHA) If, like yesterday, my eldest daughter is there in his place, we do every one we come across. I think we did every charity shop in the Exeter shopping centre and actually, I wasn't that bad because I *only* came away with three books:



For £3.50 I got a book of ghost stories by Sheridan le Fanu, a crime book I saw reviewed somewhere and have been looking for for a while now - Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg and, best of all, this lovely hardback book of creepy stories by Daphne du Maurier. I mean... how could I possibly leave that behind???

And because I can I'll do an 8th. bookish thing about me.

8. I really, really, really do not understand people who never read. When I hear people say, 'I've never read a book in my life' I am totally flabbergasted and can't imagine how they ever manage to cope.