The things we do for love...

Being an English student requires a certain loopiness. Books become an obsession, like pets. You have to look after them with care and pride; rearrange the shelves so they’re presented at their best; group them with books you think they’ll fit in with; keep them clean; use a bookmark – don’t fold the corner and definitely DON’T PUT IT DOWN STILL OPEN! (creasing the spine = death to book’s role as prized possession – hello Oxfam). Occasionally you find yourself pulling them off the shelves just to admire the beautiful colours and feel the soft materials that protect them. Having a book – especially a pristine copy – is infinitely better to reading online. I don’t care if it’s free, I don’t care if I can have any book I want at my fingertips within seconds. I want the tangible object. It’s all part of the experience – between the covers is a whole new world, and there’s something deliciously exciting about settling down and preparing to read. The best books are those which still inspire that sense of anticipation even on their tenth, twentieth read. Some of you will know exactly what I mean. Some of you will think I’m mental.

You think I’m bad?

One of my closest friends has just blown me away with his insanity. This is M: 26, living in a rented flat in a dump of an area with barely any furniture and regularly living off cereal for days on end because he can’t afford ‘real’ food. His student loan payment days are highlighted in red on the calendar for the rest of the entire year. He wears clothes until they are quite literally falling apart before getting replacements.

This afternoon, he casually informs me, he's spent £1000 on a book.

A book. An original ‘Olde Englishe’ edition bound in leather and cobwebs book so fragile you can’t actually hold it. He’ll never be able to read it, and is fully accepting of this fact. After all, he already has a modern paperback copy. Er, what? Apparently he’s been saving for months. All the lack of food, clothes, cleaning (I have NO idea how that helped contribute to The Book Fund) have been in aid of this. If I had the money spare, then I admit I’d probably splash out for the original of a book I loved. But not even ‘Sense and Sensibility’ is going to make me survive on Weetabix for three months.

Well. Not unless it was handwritten by Austen herself.