Day 15 of my drabble-a-day challenge. Here is today's drabble:

Literature

It was beautiful: blue leather binding, shiny gold edges. I'd never read Dickens - never wanted to - but I said thank you, nicely, and set it on the shelf.

Did I imagine that it drew its pages in, to avoid touching the other books?

The next day, my copy of Obama's memoir was missing. Surely it was right there? Did the Dickens look... fatter?

I moved the blue book, wedging it between worn paperbacks.

The following day was carnage. Katie Fforde had pages missing, Brother Cadfael was crushed sideways, John Wyndham was on the floor...

Literature was clearly not for me.

Good evening! Today appears to be a tour of my psyche.

Firstly: I do not shelve my books coherently. They are all wedged in anyhow, based on size, order of acquisition, and whimsy. I sometimes worry that the spontaneous hatred engendered by shelving (say) Dennis Wheatley next to Oliver Sacks, or Anthony à Wood next to a book of Matt Pritchett’s cartoons, might cause some sort of explosion. (Yes, they are real examples from my shelves.) I worry about it a lot.

Secondly: I am not that fond of Dickens. He and I met under unfortunate circumstances in school. I have, I concede, since read and enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities, and can deal with A Christmas Carol at an appropriate season. I don’t mind a dated writing style (I wellied cheerfully through Harrison Ainsworth and H. V Morton as a teenager), but I find Dickens very hard going as a rule. He can write a funny line, but boy do you have to wade through the pages to find them.

Thirdly: I have quite a bee in my bonnet about the idea of some books being more worthy than others. Katie Fforde, Ellis Peters and John Wyndham are all up there as authors I have read and re-read, but who don’t necessarily command respect. But they are every bit as welcome to their shelf-space, here, as anyone with a perma-place on the national curriculum.