Sunday Salon: Sizing up the issue

Is there a pair of fat trousers in your wardrobe? Maybe it’s a skirt or dress instead. I’m talking about the garment that many of us have lurking in the cupboard somewhere. The garment that you take out every now and again to guage whether you need to hold back from the ice cream or choccie biscuits for a while or step up the time on the treadmill. My own version is a taupe coloured silk skirt I bought from Episode for an awards evening more than a decade ago. It was part of a suit and while not designer prices, was more than I normally spent on clothes so  I’ve been loathe to discard it even when I could no longer kid myself that it fitted me.

It’s at this point that you are probably wondering what this has to do with our normal Sunday Salon catch up on bookish related things. Has BookerTalk gone completely off her rocker you may be thinking. In the words of the (fictitious) Prime Minister in the House of Cards tv series I’m currently watching: you might very well think that but I couldn’t possibly comment.

Fear now however, there is a connection. Of a sort.

You may (if you’ve been paying attention over the last few weeks) recall that I was bemoaning the fact recently that my acquisitive nature has meant I have too many yet-to-be-read books to fit into my bookshelves. Hence why I am following a self-imposed ban on buying anything new for a while so I can focus on reading a few of the ones I already own.

Now I could easily judge my progress by ticking them off as I read and coming over all smug when I see those little symbols creep up. But I decided I needed something rather more visual.

I have a pile of books bought as Christmas presents that are currently lurking on the floor, feeling rather neglected while they wait for a space to become available on what I like to think of as ‘my’ bookshelf. There is another little collection that I snuck into a bookcase shared with Mr BookerTalk hoping it would hide the fact I was buying rather lots of books towards the end of the year. I am not sure whether he has noticed but the game will be up before long I’m afraid…. There are 15 books I’ve found so far.

So I’m going to use these two piles as my version of the fat trousers. I’ll know I’ve made progress when I can fit all of these into ‘my’ bookcase.  It’s not as easy as one in, one out since books come in different thicknesses as you all know. But once I can fit into the space again, then like all good weight watchers, the hard bit will be to keep it that way and prevent the equivalent of the midriff bulge coming back.

I’m planning to make a little more progress later on today. But first things first — would you just mind passing me that wicked looking chocolate biscuit…