All booked up

I have a vice. Admittedly it's not much of a vice, but then again I'm quite an uninteresting person, hence I feel the need to put most of my thoughts down on this blog.

My vice is books. I love books. I love being surrounded by them and spend hours reading.

But my family think I'm weird because I read more than one book at once. I don't mean I have five or six spread out on a table reading a page in each before darting to the next one like a chess champion's exhibition. No, I have more than one book on the go at any one time.

Currently I have five: Mark Watson's Crap at the Environment (one of the funniest comics around currently tries to save the planet - my light read); John O'Farrell's Utterly Impartial History of Britain (another light read but also educational); Christian Wolmar's Subterranean Railway (the story of the London Underground - slightly heavy going but it is a subject which fascinates me); Stephen E Ambrose's D Day (essential reading for everybody in the most pampered and comfortable British generation ever); and To Have and Have Not, by Ernest Hemingway (My attempt at literary self-education).

Plus I'm listening to Bill Bryson's Lost Continent on my mp3 player when walking to work and PG Wodehouse's Uncle Fred in the Springtime is in the CD player when I'm driving.

Which book I read at bed-time depends on my mood. If I've had a hard day and am feeling a little down or stressed I'll turn to a light read; if I'm feeling full of the joys of a bedspring I'll pick up something a little heavier. I don't think that makes me 'weird' though my wife and kids disagree.

I still get through two or three books every fortnight, even flitting from one to the next.

My darling wife always say "I don't know how you can do that - I'd get lost." But this is the same woman who five minutes after Tom Barnaby makes a crucial discovery in Midsomer Murder will turn to me and ask "how did he know that?"

And they think I'm weird.

FOOTNOTE: I've just finished reading Tim Moore's Nul Points, a celebration of those people who garnered nul points for their entry into the Eurovision Song Contest. How appropriate for a Pompey fan...