Books books books

Were I to be cast adrift on BBC Radio 4's mythical Desert Island, my luxury would not be my lovely new MacBook (though it is indeed shiny and wonderful) but as many boxes of books as they would allow me to to take. Whether I'd read them or not wouldn't bother me. Truly my favourite luxury right now is the time to retire to a comfortable spot with a book I can lose myself in, and the knowledge that I'm not going to be disturbed for long enough to get properly lost in its pages. Actually, that desert island is looking rather attractive right now.

So here's a small, quickly taken tribute to books on the slightly confusing 'British and Irish' 'World' Book Day. This is the book I'm reading just now: Electric Brae by Andrew Greig. And soon me and it have an appointment in a warm bed that fills me as much excitement and longing as many other types of bed-based rendez-vous. (I'm tired and full of cold - on another night you'd get a different perspective.)

So, yeah books. Love them, read them, eulogise to your friends about them, lend them freely and never expect them back.

Today, more prosaically we got up, sneezed lots, did a jigsaw with my folks, then packed the car and drove back through the fog to Scotland. Quick appointment in Haddington, then back to Fife and our chilly house, with a huge stack of mail to wade through (much of it for someone else - whose mail is inexplicably being forwarded to our house).

Uploading this from the Mac. Not sure how all this works, so you could be getting any picture really.