Birdsong is to insomniac as [blank] is to serial killer...

This book is not generally considered 'self help'.


BUT IT SHOULD BE.

I Beshrew You

You know who you are. Isn't language brilliant?

Something Pretentious

These words are to be found on the wall of Any Amount of Books on Charing Cross Road. Quite apart from being generally awesome and having an irresistible collection of Penguin Classics (literally; I did not resist), they also have this on the walls. Turns out empyrean comes from the Greek word empyrus (in or on the fire), and means "the highest heaven". I realise it's incredibly pretentious but I don't really mind - we could all do with some quiet and illimitable space in which to spread our wings and explore...Greek things. Providing said wings are not wax and we don't fall to our deaths, of course.

One Day

"Sometimes when it's going badly she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery"

- David Nicholls; One Day

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins

Lolita has been on my 'To Read' list for an absurdly long time. Perhaps the joy of reading it was partly personal triumph and the joy of ticking an item off a list - perhaps it's just that it's AMAZING. I wish I could more eloquently express what a stunning piece of work it is. As a child I wore glasses. I have a vague and possibly false memory of the time I first saw the world clearly; the clarity, the sharpness, the colour - this is how I felt reading Lolita. My literary glasses are on and the world is clear again. Hurrah for Nabokov. And paedophilia.

I wish I were joking - it seems I'm drawn to it these days; I'm fairly disturbed by the fact that the next book I read also centred around inappropriate adult/child relationships: The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton. I feel it would be pretentious to suggest that writing about other people's writing is a false echo of the real thing and has something to do with Plato's shadows on the cave - in other words it's totally douchey. That being said, this book is really, really good. The writing is like nothing I've ever read and I wish I'd written more of it down so I could impress people at parties by pretending the words were my own. I go to some wild parties. My only worry it it seems more like a long short story than a novel; what is it about writers that they think if they write stunningly we'll ignore the fact that the plot doesn't really resolve? My other Only Worry is that Eleanor Catton was born in 1985. This isn't a problem in itself, but hark, what's that? She published the book in 2007? This girl wrote this incredible book at 20. I'm trying to teach myself to change my perspective on this; rather than be intimidated by this and feel like I haven't acheived enough and it's shameful I haven't written a novel yet, I have a different perspective. I am motivated and inspired to acheive more and do more and be more. If I say that enough it will become true.

Marginalia Larks

Books are good, right? We're all agreed. But what's...gooderer? Spending thousands of pounds on an English degree and being unable to think of the word 'better' for several minutes? No! Second Hand Bookshops. They, quite frankly, Rock My Socks. I was thinking about making a T-shirt that says "Second Hand Bookshops Rock My Socks" but it's not the snappiest slogan in the world, and there is the inevitable problem that any girl wearing a top with words on has to suffer the indignity of someone basically reading her breasts. I digress.

My Second Hand Bookshop of the Week is without a doubt, Any Amount of Books which can be found in real life at 56 Charing Cross Road, and on the internet here: http://www.anyamountofbooks.com/ . They don't make 'em like this anymore - leather so stiff and battered, fifty years old and you can practically still smell the cow. A couple of doors down, in another labyrinth of libris (Latin and alliteration, get me) I stifled giggles at the incredibly super-posh odd couple proprieters, who could have been performing a Fry and Laurie sketch for all I know, with their disdainful commentary on pretty much everything. Flicking through these second-hand gems, you find things you wouldn't in Waterstones - 50 year-old bus tickets fall out of the pages, inscriptions to long-dead lovers are still marked on the front page.

This message for example - who is Philip? Was Miranda his lover? Why is her name in sarcastic quote marks - is it a code? Were they spies?! Ok probably not. But it's still interesting - is he in the forces, still off on a post-war peace-keeping thing in '49? And if so, is what he really needed a copy of "Three Plays for Puritans"?

What all this boils down to is that my books have had lives and loves before I was even born. Which, in my jobless, loveless state, just makes me feel more inadequate. My books are more accomplished than I am. That is depressing.