Unlike the mean ‘n’ moody photo of Alan Bennett that graces the cover of his prose collection, Untold Stories (Faber, Profile), the Book Gods were really smiling on me at the weekend when they willed me into a 2nd-hand shop, and directed my glance towards this very book.
One louder-than-it-should-have-been girly squeal and two new English Pounds from the musty wallet later, and I was able to leave the shop with a skip and a hop, and the book in hand (Squealing? Skipping? Hopping? I’m starting to wonder if maybe my mother should have christened me Roberta 
).
In all honesty I have no idea when I will get around to indulging myself with the content of this book – which is mainly a big fat wad of autobiographical and fictional prose from Bennett – but for now it’s more than pleasure enough just to hug it as close to me as possible – even with the abhorrent pong of cigarette smoke that permeates its pages..yuck!
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