The Tower Beside the Bed (Ain't Gettin' Any Smaller)

Image from Etsy; isn't it gorgeous? Apart from the mouse

So this was supposed to be the year when I made a serious assault on the Pile Beside the Bed. I made a secret vow: no buying any more books until I'd made my way through the ones that were already waiting! And here we are, well into April, and the Pile has been upgraded to the Tower, despite all my intentions to the contrary.

So what's gone wrong?

There are distractions: I visit the library (just to return my daughter's books, Your Honour, I swear!) and see something tempting on display. Like the Retro Melbourne photograph book I picked up yesterday... Or I go to the library book sale (just to offload a box of my own discards, Your Honour!) and see a novel I think my mum might enjoy (like Case Histories by Kate Atkinson, which Mum has now finished and lent back to me... onto the Tower it goes.)

My friends lend me books. Sandra Eterovic lent me Paul Daley's Collingwood: A Love Story, which joins her copy of Middlesex, waiting on the Tower. My lovely hairdresser Fiona has not just lent but given me her copy of The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood, which is definitely next on my list.

I listen to an In Our Time podcast about Mrs Dalloway and search my shelves under Virginia Woolf and pull out my copy for a re-read... I realise that there are new books out by Jaclyn Moriarty and Helen Garner or an Antonia Forest reprint and I have to Make An Exception to my no-new-books rule. And there are books to read for the Convent book group, two a month, so I can't dig into the Pile -- sorry, Tower -- until I've knocked over those... It never stops! There's always something calling!

And I wouldn't have it any other way. But maybe I need to start reading from the bottom of the pile occasionally!