I have always had a strange relationship with books. I know that some people treat them like cherished love objects or even as people or friends. I have a very different attitude. When I was a child I used to eat books. I would never actually eat the text but would tear neatly round the margins as I read each page and consume the edges of the book. I suppose I was a bookworm.

This destructive attitude extended into adulthood where I was repeatedly banned from libraries for losing books, and even into family life, where my little girl first had her borrowers privileges suspended from Calderdale Library at the age of 6 months. To this day, feelings of guilt and longing come over me as I walk past the library door in Hebden Bridge. Could we possibly ever put our past library history behind us and rejoin the happy reading library family? It seems too difficult to manage. The Library Man is a regular visitor at our house and has even been awarded a special stick on Nice Visitor badge by the children but the unanswered questions appended to our lost library tickets are too numerous. We head off for Oxfam for a guilt free carrier bag full of paperbacks instead.

I seem to have been studying for years and years and years, what with doing the wrong Masters then the right one, and having babies, this all took me nearly fifteen years…

So when I wasn’t reading my study books – yes it was time for some RUBBISH! Thick books with pink covers and gold titles… … Hollywood Husbands… … …Live the Dream……... Secrets of a Summer Night… Yes, Hollywood Wives is up there with the best of them… I even managed to achieve an old ambition of ripping off the pages of a book and throwing them away as I read.

Occasionally I read a few really good books by mistake. Stone Diaries by Carol Shields, and the wonderful Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, Riddley Walker and The Lion of Jachin Boaz and Boaz Jachin, by Russell Hoban… but on the whole I tried to stick to the potboilers wherever possible.

Except when the going got tough, then was back to my security blanket. Out come the Iris Murdochs.  Under the Net is a short but wonderful early read. The Sea the Sea (nice and long) and Message to the Planet…… The Green Knight… …

You may be wondering, did I ever eat my Iris Murdochs? I never did, but I used to inhale their scent. Sometimes I still do, but only on a very bad day.

By the way, don’t worry about lending me your books. I won’t ask you, I really won’t. I couldn’t stand the guilt. I’ll just go and buy it from the bookshop. Although it probably won’t be worth eating.