I keep to myself on one side of a bed whose other half is occupied by books meant to match my moods, catch the thread of all my thoughts, from hard-angled works of reference, to magazines, loose leaf pads. A collection of love-lorn verse hugs an impenetrable masterpiece while Judith Hearne’s eclipsed by glamour ads.
When I bring a new one back over dinner with a glass of wine I imagine removing its paper bag running my fingers down its spine how I’lI fan the pages to inhale its pristine smell, then make it my own: easing back the sleeve and going down on the biographical detail.
Sometimes that’s the best bit on evenings when I’m not in form to get stuck in or to commit not even to paper. One volume alone then seems able to interject: Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary — something new with every read and no long-term effects.
I can fall asleep over a phrase whose meaning remains a stranger and wake in the morning with Roget’s Thesaurus poking me urgently in the back. Ann Leahy Dublin, Ireland
