With these books you know what you’re getting. And this year, for me, that has been a very uncomplicated form of self-care
At a certain point in lockdown I had to face facts. I only wanted one kind of book: the kind with predictable plots, ensemble casts and very specific narrative rules; the kind that begins in murder or ends in marriage. (Kind of the opposite of lockdown.)
Our neighbour, sorting through her family home after a death, had asked if we could store a few books. She came from generations of bibliophiles, among them a self-taught bookbinding grandmother. So “a few” turned out to be hundreds – old banana boxes stuffed with Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Georgette Heyer. Lovingly handbound with varying degrees of finesse, their titles carefully written in trembly calligraphy or stamped in gold leaf on to red and navy leather. Other things, too: books on clocks, military history, the suffragettes. But after months of ignoring a wildly ambitious pandemic reading list, these Golden Age murder mysteries and Regency romances were all I craved. Our neighbour told me her grandmother had called them her “salted peanuts”. Apt: moreish, low on nutritional value, enjoyable any time.
Continue reading...from World news | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2M7Dbfu
0 Comments