Books are there to FURNISH THE MIND, not the home!

I was listening to BBC Radio 4 Sunday Morning Magazine Programme. There was a piece about how people buy books to fill their shelves or just buy first editions to own, just for show, rather than for reading. The author, Terry Deary, of the piece, said it was like a dead tree or a dead forest!

Absolutely! Books are there to furnish the mind not the home. - Someone emailed the programme to say that this attitude was inverted snobbery. Really?

I met someone who when I invited her for dinner, scoured my bookshelves to see what types of books I read. She seemed relieved that we shared a similar taste in novels.

I'm delighted that ebooks seem to be becoming overshadowed by REAL books. I agree with Mary Kenny who says the look, feel and practical nature of real books (I would add smell, too) is still a draw for most people. 
They are satisfying, more versastile and so much more aesthetically gratifying.  Yes they take up space and collect dust, but as the author says
I agree that parting with favourite books can be hard.  

I hate lending books to people who don't return them. I know someone who used to charge her friends for overdue returns on loaned books. She's a librarian now!

How do you feel about books?

Belated Haiku Poetry Day

So, it was Haiku Poetry Day on Mon 17th April?

Holiday haiku

Tranquil verse for heart and mind

Though it's stormy, still!  

This haiku spring board

When seventeen syllables

Make the season shine 

Two Novels in Tandem

I know a lot of people who would never consider reading two novels at the same time.

Well,  I received 'Girl on the Train' by Paula Hawkins

and 'The Secrets of Happiness' by Lucy Diamond

amongst my Christmas pressies and decided that I didn't want to read the harrowing one before bed time.

Consequently, I am reading Lucy Diamond before 'lights-out' and 'Girl on the Train' in snatched moments in the day.

Of course, I could end up confusing the two plots and characters in my head, but I'm hopeful I won't and that the exercise will stimulate my brain rather than confuse it.

My thinking is that we read many things in the day from newspapers and letters to emails and homework exercises as well as novels without confusing them.

Would you read two novels at the same time?
Maybe you have read these novels yourselves? Tell all... 

Happy Easter 
Afterword: I have since discovered that Girl on the Train is more involved and so requires more brain power. So I will finish Lucy Diamond, which I am enjoying, (giggling included) and then return to Paula Hawkins