Book Chit Chat

The grand thing (okay, okay, the BESTEST thing ever) of living the rural life, is that by 8 o'clock you are in bed. And you can read. There are no cinemas or friends or braai's or parties and other such frivolous things to distract you from bed time and reading time! So, I'm reading a lot.

I moved to Otjiwarongo, and I was, well-prepared. In the books area at least. I'd gone extensive book shopping at my faverouite second hand booksote in Obs - it is the best place, and the owner is simply divine. He reads his clientelle like, well, books and knows just the right new book you must buy. No argument. Lovely.

And yet, after a year, my collection of unread books was becoming alarmingly thin. I shudder to think what I would actually do the day I am stranded without reading material.
And so, in order to avoid that armegeddon, on my short visit to Johannesburg a friend of mine led me to the second best bookstore in the world.

Let me just, at this point, add: Do not, ever, especially if you love books, walk into a second hand bookstore with a credit card after you've had three glasses of red wine. Just don't. Okay. Good.

I did. And well, I'm now the proud owner of a collection of books I never thought I'd actually look at twice. Some of them are my normal fare, fiction without plot but lot's of character. But some, like "Myrren's Gift", a fantasy book including magic dogs, dungeons, torture of naked females, an evil king, a beheading, and ofcourse, our wonderful hero, are not normally books I read.

And yet, being in Otjiwarongo, where about three other people read and the closest bookstore about 290km away, I grabbed the book the other day.

And I'm loving it! Absolutely adoring the predictable plot, the black and white characters, the murder and mayhem, the secret assasins, the neighbouring kingdom on the verge of war with a sickly Queen..... I've seen it and heard it all before, and yet...

Reviews (of books bought while slightly intoxicated) coming soon!