The Book Vole

Even going to a wedding allowed me to acquire more books: my mother gave me a 1930s edition of Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence, and my brother and his wife Bethan presented my with Mark Thomas's exposé of Coca-Cola Belching Out The Devil, some fine Moleskine notebooks, and a Warhol-esque Margaret Thatcher postcard.

Then I get to work and find deliveries of more fine books: Nick Turse's The Complex: How The Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, Habermas's The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Reeve's Fever Crumb, le Carré's A Most Wanted Man and finally Diana Wynne Jones's The Game. I must do some work this week, so will try to ignore them…

They think it's all over… and it is.

Well, that's over. I managed to get through about 3 of my points and six of my pages in the allotted half hour - it's really hard trying to say what's exciting about something when the audience haven't even heard of the field, let alone the individual. Plus my signer (poor woman) had to cope with Welsh names and references without prior knowledge - she did magnificently, but I had to slow down hugely.

Still, I think it went OK, and one audience member clearly knew about post-1918 Welsh culture and asked some interesting questions. It's always a relief to get a question, especially the first one, because it suggests one hasn't completely wasted one's time.

The next presenter gave a historical overview of deaf artists, and he was followed by a fascinating paper on Diana Wynne Jones's The Game, which I'm now about to order.

I'm skipping the next session - I need a break. I should probably move though - the air conditioning's dripping on my computer.