being a total book junkie i used to fall in love all the time. with other people’s words. then the fixes got harder to find, i’d read too much maybe, i don’t know, but i got jaded, and then, then when i began to write seriously i couldn’t read anything at all other than the newspaper, and, since the newspaper generally tends to make me sad, too much reading of it wasn’t good for my brain. 

last year on july 31st (i know this because i write the dates in books, always), we had a perfect day of snooping around second hand bookshops, drinking beer then later rum, and on that day i stumbled across a book, it’s title was enough to grab me, it was called ‘the book of disquiet’, but i didn’t buy it. and then, on tuesday lunchtime, i was walking home when the sky blackened, and began to fall, hard, cold rain. i ran then to the nearest shelter, to the same bookshop we’d been in that day, and the book was still there. two editions, and i stood for a long time weighing them both in my hand, checking the translation, the introductions, the notes, before settling on the fatter one, even tho i liked the font the least. and although the weather hadn’t lifted i took my chances and found a cafe, whereupon i was firmly in love by the second page. it’s not a story, as such, but the use of language to describe thoughts and the state of being a person, of being an artist, is so close to perfect. i doubt i’ll ever read anything like it again.