Quantity vs quantity

I've been busy at work. I've been working late and not had "me" time to sit down and write. Saying that, I have found time to buy. After last month was tight, I paid myself early (I do my own payroll:/) and got out of London for a weekend of sun and sea in Essex. I only took a small bag with essentials in including Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell, to read on the train.

My plans were to generally look for cheapish dress for a birthday party later in the month, catch up with some reading and eat some decent grub. Again, I have to say I cannot resist a bargain and clearing living in London has inflated my idea of what is cheap. I've been buying second-hand books for £2, £3 or even £4 and going mad with actual new books. When I found a Cancer Research shop with all books for £1, I thought it couldn't get any cheaper. I was wrong. So at the weekend, I went a little overboard. Not over the pier at Clacton-on-Sea, but I did buy more books than I thought I could physically carry with me.

It starts with a few interesting covers:

24. The Trial - Franz Kafka - £1.99 Oxfam (classic penguin books orange cover - looks so good)

25. Burmese Days - George Orwell - £1.99 Oxfam (I had to buy after just finishing Down and Out, perfect accompaniment, another penguin classic)

26. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe - Carson McCullers - £1.49 Oxfam (discovered Carson McCullers about 5 years ago, fascinating author who's first novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was written at 21)

27. The Viagro Book of Women Travellers - Various - £1.49 Oxfam

Then I wander by a book fair with free entry run by the Samaritans. Tea and cake is served whilst old friends catch up and others quietly peruse the titles. There aren't as many books on offer as I was hoping, but the prices are dirt cheap and I cannot let any interesting titles escape me.

28. Keep the Aspidistra Flying - George Orwell - £0.50 The Samaritans (3 for £1) (following in the theme of George Orwell, in trying to read all his work)

29. Hamlet - Shakespeare - £0.50 The Samaritans (3 for £1) (never read this at school)

30. Pere Goriot - Honore de Balzac - £0.50 The Samaritans (3 for £1) (interest stoked only after reading Balzac and the Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie)

31. Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift - £0.50 The Samaritans (great adventure novel, perfect for a train journey or beach)

32. Hong Kong: Epilogue to an Empire - Jan Morris - £1 The Samaritans (3 for £2.50)

33. The Silent Traveller in London - Chiang Ye - £1 The Samaritans (3 for £2.50) (found an expensive first edition of this years ago in Oxford, the first Chinese traveller to write about his experiences in London)

34. China and Japan; Myths and Legends - £1 The Samaritans (3 for £2.50)

35. The Heritage of Chinese Cooking - Elizabeth Chong - £2 The Samaritans (looking through this makes me want to cook glorious dishes every night, this book will make me fat)

These were quite heavy with two being quite meaty hardbacks so I set off. Feeling though that for £6 that I wouldn't find prices like this again for a while, I went back for more.

36. The Penguin Book of English Verse - John Hayward - £1 The Samaritans

37. Under a Glass Bell - Anais Nin - £0.50 The Samaritans (3 for £1)

38. The Overcoat and Other Short Stories - Nikolai Gogol - £0.50 The Samaritans (3 for £1)

39. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Solzhenitsyn - £0.50 The Samaritans (3 for £1) (obviously bought this recently but the 70s cover looks so good and it was only 33p)

I feel if they are going to sell books three for a pound, it's not really my fault, I do have to buy them. I probably did buy too many, I mean, they were extremely heavy and my bag was literally bursting it's very seams. 

I should be more worried. 39 books in nearly a month, nearly a book a day, 70 quid-odd or £2.29 per day. 

It vaguely and very much on the very thinest layer concerns me that this is not normal. 

I wouldn't say it was unhealthy though. 

Actually, I think it is fine. A healthy and robust interest in books (and reading).