Bibliomaniacs try to go slow in the Cape November 12 2015
The Bookdealers have been travelling.
As I write Doron is still swanning around the Cape visiting bookshops a glass of red in hand ... or if not in hand not far way.
There is nothing like a change of scenery to rejuvenate ones soul.
The hardest part for me is deciding which novels I am taking with.
Since I know I will be visiting bookshops and possibly (okay probably) purchasing more books, the books I take with are chosen with great care.
One needs to have space for the return journey.
I know in advance that I will read them and leave them for my very special friends In Cape Town to read.
They too are Bibliomaniacs and we share a fondness for beautifully written lyrical novels.
This year I managed to take Marilyn Robinson's "Homeland" which I was rereading only to find that my friend had read it and adored it.
That one I did return with!
But I left her with "Ghana must go" by Taiye Selasi. An extraordinary work depicting so well the fate of the African diaspora .
I also left her the quirky "Three things you need to know about rockets" by Jessica Fox.
I always feel compelled to read about people who start off on a different course in life and end up drowning in tomes in a second hand book shop.
Somehow I do not feel so alone as I wade through dusty boxes of books and remember my last life in a corner office with a desk and a filing cabinet.
I chuckle to myself and thank my lucky stars I am where I am.
I was half way through the inimitable Natasha Solomons' new novel "The Song Collector".
That one came back with me.
A good thing.
I may need to read it again. A few times.
And so here I am back in the thick of things.
And I realise I have hardly read at all!
I did finish the "Song Collector" and am have started to read the "Steady Running of the Hour" by Justin Go which I am enjoying immensely.
All I need is time to read.
I may have to grab a glass of red, put on a CD of the sounds of the sea, switch off my phone and pretend I am in the fairest Cape.
.
