How being surrounded by books has made me die a little inside

Working in a book shop is, in many ways, an ideal job for me. I get to spend time rummaging through boxes of travel guides and novels, I get to scale ceiling-height shelves looking for signed anthologies, I get to have that gorgeous smell of books surrounding me. Basically, I can spend my entire working day nerding out without anyone judging me.


But there is one thing. Working with 20,000 books is playing havoc with how I view the world.

In one way, my faith in hardcopy reading (and therefore humanity) is deepened. I'm stirred into a fuzzy feeling when I see the sheer volume of books that are ordered everyday. Someone, somewhere, is really looking forward to getting that first edition children's book. A book that was printed in Milan, lent in libraries in Sao Paulo, and packed up in a barn in south of France, is now winging its way to Susan in Dorset. Removing bookmarks from well-thumbed novels, reading annotations from people's close studies. The romantic in me is having an absolute field day.

On the other hand, I've realised how crazy people are. Utterly, utterly batshit. People will read anything.

But before I tirade about this, a disclaimer; I hate that snobbery that inhabits people's opinions of literature. You know, how anytime a novel gets a film adaptation, everyone's knickers automatically twist and we all splutter about it not doing the book justice. Or whenever something that The Independent didn't review gets popular, and everyone guards their precious Waterstones loyalty cards like Twihards are going to soil all the "real" literature in the world. Let's just man up about books- people like to read, and are entertained by different things. Get over it. You have more important things to troll than a Fifty Shades of Grey Facebook page.

So I'm really really not being snobby about this. This is unadulterated astonishment.

Yesterday I catalogued a book by a German woman from the seventies, talking about her drawings of cats. Seriously. That's it. Not only does the book exist- and just think what that entails; someone thought the idea of the book sounded neat, someone WROTE that book, and someone else went out and PAID MONEY for it- but the thing is selling for about £20.

It's even stranger when you have to examine these books closer. Think no one would be interested in 700 recipes that solely rely on the use of a microwave? Think again, there's four editions of that bad boy. Couldn't possibly foresee a situation in which someone would want to update a guide to behavioural habits of German Shepards? Wrong. Volume four, now available in shops near you.

The one that really hurt my feelings, though, was the catchily titled "Mathematics in Fun and Earnest" . I swear to God. Google it right now. If anything was going to put a dampener on my definition of fun (and earnest...), it's this book.

Now I know that seeing as anyone is allowed to write books, about anything they want, there is a LOT of crap out there. There's not much I can (or would) do about it. But this really was taking the biscuit. I can't think of anything worse than having to read that book. As Emma Bennett once eloquently put it, "I'd rather sick up a chip". I calmly put the book back onto its pile, and tried to hold back the rush of sheer disgust.

My main rule for travelling has been to always overestimate how many books you'll need. The extra weight in my suitcase will be worth it- I don't want to end up reading taxi leaflets again like on my last day in Turkey, with seven hours to spare at the airport. But just knowing this Mathematics in Fun and Earnest exists has cemented for me what was already core advice. In no circumstances do I want to be left with a choice of MIF&E or staring blankly at an airport wall for seven hours. I honestly don't know which I'd choose.

"For the traveller"

Things I've done in France (part one.)

My three weeks of French life has officially begun. Since calming down after my brief spell of hysteria, things have been rocking along perfectly. 

The weather is 95% stunning. Obviously, I've brought some of the north of England's weather with me, just to remind me that I do have to come home to the delightful rain at some point. Don't want to get too comfortable and forget I've got the joys of frantic linguistics work to look forward to in October. Luckily, it only really rains very early in the morning, so the biggest inconvenience it poses is the rattle of it wakes me at 6ish, and the hammock is slightly damp. 

I've learnt how to make bread (!). The trick is, beat it up as much as you can. Don't worry if it weighs a tonne, people will politely eat it anyway, and commend your first attempt even if it tastes like someone's baked a rock. (Point of science- how can 550g of flour, two sachets of yeast, tablespoon of salt, and 350g of water turn out as two different weights each time? Answers in the comment box/postcards please, genuinely baffled.)

I've been rockclimbing. Yep. Me. It's the first extreme sport I've done since Sam/Jack/Sara dragged me off to do that bloody wakeboarding thing a few years ago. You can imagine how terrible I was at being flung around a lake on a piece of plastic. Where there is a voluntary situation that could potentially put my life in danger, I know from lots of near misses over my life to opt out. I don't have the best of luck getting up the stairs in a straight line, so when my host, Alex, asked me how my rock climbing was, I had to really resist the urge to openly scoff.

Not wanting to miss out on any fun, I decided to give it a go. I took a book in case I was too afraid to try it out, anyway. Arriving at the rockface with a bunch of Alex's friends, the wall didn't look half as terrifying as it had been in my head. That was until I saw the pro-climber of the group clamber up in order to arrange the ropes. He looked so tiny all the way up there. This didn't seem like a good idea any more.

Too soon it was my turn, and once I'd managed to get the harness on, take it back off, and replace it so that it wasn't upside down, I was off. Climbing is surprisingly easy. Strategically, it was difficult, and when you couldn't find anywhere to place your dangling foot it was pretty strenuous- but over all I enjoyed it. Once you've got comfortable doing it, and got some decent grip, it's just like a weird, vertical crawl. 

Coming down was the scary bit. Your life/spine lies in the hands of the person who is holding a corresponding piece of rope at the bottom of the wall. You have no option but to trust that they can manage the weight, know the pace you want to abseil down at, and aren't going to drop the rope. Lean back, feet flat, and try not to dangle. The rush of being dropped down a foot too fast isn't pleasant, but I guess it's over faster that way.

When I'm not busy scaling rockfaces or being a housewife, I can usually be found in the Best Place On Earth. 

Here.

Ah, the hammock. If I end up never returning to England, then this hammock is your best bet of finding me. I've already ploughed through my first Bill Bryson book on it. I've just about mastered not rolling off. I know exactly where to aim for when jumping on. I've not yet figured out how to make it rock slightly without kicking off from the ground, but there's plenty of time to suss that one out. 

my room for one.

When I'm ready to roll into bed after a hard day reading and helping around the house, I just scuttle inside this bad boy and get my head down. It's very bloody different from my camping in Whitby experiences. First of all it doesn't leak. Second of all I don't have to share it with two snoring sisters which is a novel change. Only downside is that I'm on hyperalert for spiders/other creepy crawlies during the night, and spend the first hour before I drift off meticulously checking every inch of the mattress/duvet for hidden demons with more legs than necessary. 

The host is cool, the host's friends are cool, the Czech couple also workawaying here are cool. The guy plays guitar and sings into the middle distance a lot, so I have a nice little backing track to my reading sessions on the hammock. I'm really loving it here.

 

Pleased as punch.