Whenever I’m out shopping with the family there’s always a noticeable division of interest. My wife and daughters like to head for any and all clothes shop they can find, while I, not surprisingly, prefer to seek out every bookstore, 2nd-hand bookshop and charity shop within a 2-mile radius, in the hunt for desirable ‘book booty’.
So as a family we tend to split up for a while, but it’s an amicable arrangement because although the ladies like their reading, they don’t like tagging along on one of Rob’s lengthy ‘book booty’ hunts. And I certainly don’t enjoy leaning against numerous racks of woman’s clothing, feigning interest and yawning through gritted teeth.
Well we were out ‘n’ about today as a family and predictably I went off on my own for a usual trawl for books. Often it’s a fruitless task because my taste in books is no narrow. But as today’s Daily Bookshot shows, I managed to snatch a couple of fine specimens, and both of them hardbacks – Rob’s preferred bookish medium.
Pictured is a mint condition copy of one of last year’s Booker prize shortlisters – Philip Hensher’s The Northern Clemency (Fourth Estate), and an equally mint condition (for it’s age) copy of the 1991 Booker Prize winner – The Famished Road by Ben Okri (Jonathan Cape)
It’s a small catch I admit, but in a ‘sea’ where my picky nature makes me ‘throw back’ just about everything I ‘net’, a haul of two prize specimens is a good day’s ‘fishing’ for me.
Catching these splendid novels is one thing, but when I can find the time to ‘consume’ them is quite another. I just take comfort for now in the fact I have them, and can proudly display on my ‘must get around to reading these sometime in the future’ bookshelf. That alone for me is priceless.
Oh and on a side note I finally had my first play around with the Sony Reader PRS-600 (Touch Edition) today while I was wandering around Waterstones, and I’ve got to be honest with you guys, I wasn’t overly impressed. Sure it’s nice to have a touch facility on an eReader (the touch gesture for turning pages is pretty nifty), but it didn’t really give me any urge to cast off my older PRS-505, in favour of this newer model. In a way I’m glad.
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