Comfort reading

Yesterday morning I was in Scarborough. I'd struggled over in the fog for a pre-Christmas visit to my mother and was sitting in the waiting room of one of those places where they fix your car while you wait. I had a flat tyre and a flat battery and that was just the car. I felt pretty flat myself - tail-end of a cold, backache - Xmas shopping still to do, woken up at four by my daughter. But it was OK because I had with me an Agatha Christie I didn't remember reading (my mother is even more of a crime fiction addict than I am - scarcely reads anything else). And it was perfect - undemanding, such a fast, pacey read, and she's funny too. I'd almost finished it by the time the tyre was fitted and I felt better, too. I did pretty much guess who'd done it, but only right at the end. So thanks, Dame Agatha.

Birthday blog

It's almost traditional. Today's my birthday and my present from my husband is a book I've already got. Own goals in previous years have included THE BRIDGE OF THE SAN LUIS REY and THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME. This year it is THE VIRAGO BOOK OF GHOST STORIES. I know exactly how this happens - he is standing there in the book shop, the minutes ticking away, and his eye lights on a book he thinks I would like. And I do like it - I like it so much that I've already bought it and read it and it's on the shelf at home. Some years I forsee this and give him a list, but I'm so busy at this time of year that I usually forget. What I wanted this year was Jenny Uglow's biography of Thomas Bewick (or a bottle of Chanel No 19). Still it's not too late for Christmas.

Sentimental Journey

A couple of weeks ago I was at a study week-end in Birmingham and drove over to Moseley, a suburb where I used to live between the ages of 22 and 30, an important time in anyone's life. First I was a postgraduate student and then I worked at the Museum and Art Gallery as an assistant keeper. Some of the shops and restaurants were the same - the Jade Garden Chinese restaurant, the wholefood shop, but something seemed to be missing and I realised there weren't any book shops. There used to be two - Smith's (now an estate agent) and a independent one, that stocked more alternative stuff (now a CD shop). They were an important part of my life there - must have spent hours in the alternative one, hesitating about which book to buy, when money was tight. From the time I left home to go to university until we moved here to Derbyshire I've always lived within walking distance of a book shop - and that's something I still feel the lack of. More about that another day.

The power of art to console

Last Monday I was in London doing research for an academic article and was travelling from the British Library to the London Library on the underground. I was feeling low, a November day, and not very happy. I was coming up the first of the escalators at Piccadilly Circus when I heard someone singing. As I reached the top and rounded the corner to second escalators, I saw that it was a busker. He had a trained voice and it was just stupendous, so warm and full and virile, and beautifully controlled. He was singing something familiar in Italian - 'quanto, quanto, quanto, quanto' - a Neopolitan love song, I think. There were some people just standing listening. I threw some money in his hat and noticed that there were CDS there, too. As I went up the next escalator, the wonderful sound floated up around me, full of passionate yearning. He stopped singing just as I reached the top. I clapped and shouted bravo - other people were doing the same. The singer saluted us. I went on with a spring in my step. Just thinking about again makes me smile.