O’Yawn moment II: Writers revealing their favourite books this year

O’Yawn and alas, this is the time of year when writers are surveyed on their favourite “books of the year” or some such spiel. The remarkable thing is how many of them liked the same book, so the reader hoping to pick up hot, angsty, insightful titles could leave the paragraphs with the view the only man who ever wrote a book was called Edmund.

There should be a ban therefore on repetition.  A phonecall should be placed with the message: sorry find another that’s ones been nabbed.

The truth is it’s more likely some manual on the operation of a fifteenth century plough that truly sent them into orbit but because no one can find it at the library or on Amazon .. maybe they don’t want to fess up.

The library and I maintain a fruitful, but bewildering relationship with each other. They sometimes send me these brisk emails “Sorry we will not be buying this book” or I shake my head and ask if they are certain there’s no one else in this city likely to be interested in this particular book about Hispanic males age 24 and the relationship they enjoyed with their mother on a particular city block in the Lower East Side in 1961.

Still they delighted us this week by acquiring for the small Puffin Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons in French (Les Hirondelles?) from the National library in Quebec. Such is its preciousness and age, we can only read it inside the library. I feel like we are getting a peek at the bones of a famous nun.  The only remaining dilemma is my woeful French.