Shelfies Part I

Terrible Twos

Lost In Contemplation

This Will Never Be Me

Birmingham Halls of Residence

Second Literary Recommendation of the Year:

Dooooomed

“Small Publisher” (think small and you may stay small) Monday Books comments on the decline in sales of their ‘real’ books and the corresponding increase in sales of the ‘e book’. If you will permit me, I think I shall indulge in a little hyperbole here: this, I believe is a sign of the decline of civilisation as we know it. As a former librarian and bookseller it pains me to imagine a world devoid of books. As Frazer in Dad’s Army informs us in almost every episode ‘We’re doomed, I tell ye, dooooomed’. Family libraries should be made compulsory, ‘literacy hours’ should be held at the barrel of the gun. It’s the only way to save that endangered species: the faithful old book. We must not betray it now.

Time

All night she lay awake, her skin tingling, her legs restless. She was trapped in an uncontrollable, inescapable fear.Immobilised by anxiety. She found herself dreading the inevitable arrival of the dawn. She envisaged herself pushing, pushing, pushing against a moving wall of daylight, trying to hold it back. But day after day the harsh sunlight invaded her room and the little red clock on her bedside table shrieked at her mercilessly. She hated marking time. She hated the way instruments that were designed to do exactly that were scattered across every surface in her room. Clocks, watches, timetables dominated her life. Even in here: her only refuge. And the bedside clock, the little daemon that heralded the coming of the dawn was the worst of them all. An evil despot. The king of all clocks. Time is the greatest dictator of all.