Today I'm in Texas.

Well, not really; not in the flesh, but imaginarily (if that's a word (which it is (I've just checked))).

That's not quite true either: I am travelling (imaginarily) from Denver to Texas and have stayed overnight en route, although I'm not quite sure where, and it doesn't matter. It's bound to be more engaging than here anyway - here, where it's snowing, someone nearby is vacuuming and the dog next door is howling because lonely.

I'm travelling courtesy of Annie Proulx, That Old Ace in the Hole, which had been on my bookshelf, waiting to be read, since February 2003.

I know that it's been there since February 2003, because, once upon a time, I had enough time to read a lot, and amassed books so I would never run out. I'd order several books that appealed at the time, put my name in them, date them so I knew what had arrived when, and shelve them, safe (I thought) in the knowledge that I'd be able to follow up whatever theme, strand or idea had caught my interest within living memory of it doing so.

I'd carried out this practice for years and years, but in 2003 something seismic must have occurred, as I stopped reading enough. It must have taken a while for this to register, as there are still shelves of books waiting to be read, all with my name in them, and carrying dates between January 2003 and October 2005. Although the practice had survived through moves around the country, a move across the Atlantic, and then a little to-ing and fro-ing across the Pacific, it didn't survive whatever it was that happened in 2003, when I was some distance from any major modification in location or lifestyle. It is somewhat worrying that I can't remember what caused this particular sea change.


It wasn't so much a case of no longer reading. It was more a case of no longer making appointments with books - or groups of books.

There's always been something tidal about the way I read - not merely an ebb and flow, but a spring and neap. Sometimes, in my bleaker moments, I wonder if there is something tidal about the way my brain functions. I can read intelligibly, write, think and speak coherently for several weeks, then quite abruptly all intelligence stops for several days, and I can cope only with mindless entertainment. During such a mental nadir, I still read, but only books that require no thought; fast-paced books riddled with cliche, or books I can rely on for a happy ending - predictable books, in short. I once read a book on reading (and yes, I am obsessive about one or two subjects; and, yes, these do include reading and writing), which explained why some books act as 'comfort reads' in terms of shuffling our pre-existing concepts. The explanation made a lot of sense. At the time, it also caused a degree of discomfort, as, for reasons I won't go into now, I was reading and thinking about Mills and Boon, and disliked the idea that I possessed the kinds of pre-existing concepts required to make these comfortable to read. (This discomfort was partly alleviated when it became clear that one could (the modality used here is important) connect the format used in Mills and Boon books with that of Middle English Romance. Of course, this can lead one to the question whether the 'Happy ever after (in the Home Counties)' is, in some sense, hardwired into our make-up, but I'll not pursue that here.) But as well as discomfort, the explanation gave me some inkling of the what happens during these regular vacations of the mind.

So, it appears, I have been on a very long holiday, mentally. And have no idea why. Not a complete holiday, however: instead of comfort reading being a brief regular interlude, it has become the norm. Maybe (just maybe), my current reading indicates the hint of a tilt towards a former norm.