public library

I am difficult to impress. It is something I've hated about myself for as long as I remember. It has caused me to seem an ungrateful boy at Christmas and, later in life, to be misinterpreted as 'cool', aloof, dull, miserable, and on occasion antisocial. I'm pretty sure I'm none of these things for most of the time.

You should never read an autobiography of someone you don't know from a bar of soap. I borrowed Roger Scruton's, Gentle Regrets from the newly revamped town library expecting it to be as stimulating and enlightening as the Lovelock book I had just finished. I suppose it didn't cost me anything. Well, no more than I would have to pay for the service even if I didn't use it. But I did wonder why I was spending time on it when I'd also borrowed Steinbeck's East of Eden. It felt like a moment when you take a seat on a bus and the stranger next to you starts telling you his life story - yes, exactly like that! - and it's irrelevant and meaningless, and you just want to look out the window and enjoy the familiar and real meaning of the journey.

At this point, you could simply change seats or stand, but that would appear rude so you get off before your stop because waiting for the next bus, even in the cold and rain, is better than this. With a book, a book from the library, you simply return it early. God, I do love the public library!
~

I borrowed a third book that day. (Three seems to be a natural number.) It was John Humphrys' Beyond Words: How Language Reveals the Way We Live Now. It was well written and convincing but I found I agreed far too easily and was bored with the cause before chapter three was over. Never mind, I was heading for the library anyway...