Keeping Up with The Times

By now, you might think "that Mary Bennet only reads books by dead white people" and I must insist that, while I do read a lot of those books, I've also been known to peruse recently published works by living people of at least two different ethnicities.

Really, I have. Many, many such books. (Ask me about Salman Rushdie or Ben Okri or um what's that Japanese man who wrote Sputnik Sweetheart called?)

In fact, the call of the shiny new well-reviewed must-have book in attractive trade paperback has almost led to my utter ruin. I've followed the siren call of the new bestseller and the pretty cover to the extent of my credit and living space .

When I ran out of room on my shelves, and space to put more shelves, I started to hide books under the bed, in the kitchen, under the couch. Eventually, however, my beloved declared that enough was enough, he was sick of tripping over piles of books and I had to get rid of some. That's when I realised that I could hide new books in my workplace.

My buying habits changed recently when I encountered straitened circumstances and am now unable to buy new books, shoes or even meals out for some time. I'm using these weeks to look at the old hardcover friends lurking behind their more colourful successors to see if there are any I haven't read yet.