Do Books Furnish a Room?

If you look carefully you may be surprised at the contents of this bookshelf.

Lots of PG Wodehouse stacked up at the top; impossible to reach without the library steps.

And they are too cluttered to use. I will get another library step ladder and try to keep it free of books. Beneath the Wodehouse is what the intelligentsia boasting a degree in English call a load of crap. There are strange exceptions. String Theory; “an instant classic of American sportswriting: the tennis essays of David Foster Wallace, the best mind of his generation (A. O. Scott) and the best tennis-writer of all time (New York Times)”.

Back Channel by Stephen L Carter also looks out of place among so much David Sedaris, John Grisham, Dan Brown, John Niven and Jon Appleton. There’s some John le Carré, Alan Furst, Catch 22 and William Boyd, so not all trash. Have you guessed? This is Robert’s bookshelf, grudgingly allowed in a small house with not enough bookshelves.

If nobody’s looking I pull something out and have a guilty read. It reminds me of reading Enid Blyton when I should have been reading grown-up books by Sapper, Charteris and Buchan when I was ten. My next guilty read will be Castle Macnab, Richard Hannay Returns, recently given to me by friends who know I like the genre.