For the Loneli­ness You Foster, I Suggest Paul Auster

I’m not doing the book review thing anymore, I lost track. When I added it up, I real­ised that I read at least 3 books a week (fast read­er + a lot of time on trains), so that’s over 150 book reviews in a year. Writ­ing that many book reviews doesn’t really appeal, so I’ll just mention any books that piqued my interest. Recently I’ve been read­ing the New York Trilogy by Paul Auster, the sort of thing I like a lot and wondered why I hadn’t got round to read­ing it before. I think it’s what they were going for in I Heart Hucka­bees and failed to do. I hate that film. (But I love people mess­ing around with the form of detect­ive stor­ies). I’ve also been re-read­ing all my Diana Wynne Jones books, for obvi­ous reas­ons.

I’ve been doing a spot of temp­ing at the Natur­al History Museum over the East­er Break. Tick­et desk, lost prop­erty desk, that kind of thing. The pay is low, but the museum itself is one of my favour­ite places, and the exper­i­ence is all good. With my staff pass I also get free entry to all the chargeable exhib­i­tions in London (museums here are free entry, but charge for special tempor­ary exhib­i­tions). I’ve already been to the Aesthet­ic Move­ment and Yohji Yamamoto exhib­i­tions at the V&A. I was partic­u­larly inspired by the textiles and art books in the Aesthet­i­cism exhib­i­tion. I’ve got plans to go to the Miro expo at the Tate Modern and any other thing I see that interests me.

I bought some shoes for work/​fun. Excit­ing stuff. For some reas­on I always think “Can I climb a tree in these?” any time I’m buying shoes, which tends to rule out glam­our. I’m not sure why, I don’t do any tree climb­ing these days, I suppose it’s nice to have the option.

I did a boot fair with my mum too. Got rid of some junk. Lots of old 80s computers from the cupboard under the stairs and old a-level revi­sion books.

I’ve been eating a lot of cakes as usual. Whenev­er I’ve been in London I’ve often been getting cakes from the Humming­bird Bakery. Surpris­ingly cheap. Unsur­pris­ingly deli­cious. Here’s a red velvet and vanilla one.

Here’s a message from your natur­al over­lord (Mitzi Fatbum): Tickle my belly