The Maroon Diaries

 Another year, another book list.  1. Circe by Madeline Miller 2018 2. This is Happiness by Niall Williams 2019 3. Lily On The Dustbin by Nancy Keesing 1982 4. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman 1990 5. Inspiration Sandwich by SARK 1992 (re-read) 6. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent 2013 7. Monkeys With Typewriters by Scarlett Thomas 2012 8. Literary Witches by Taisia Kitaiskaia 2017 (re-read) 9. Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen 1966 10. milk and honey by Rupi Kaur 2014 11. After Story by Larissa Behrendt 2021 12. The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood 2005 13. Hansel and Greta by Jeanette Winterson 2020 14. Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter 1984 15. Dearly by Margaret Atwood 2020 16. Home Body by Rupi Kaur 2020 17. Lovers' Knots by Marion Halligan 1991 18. Sugar Crush by Dr Richard P Jacoby and Raquel Baldelomar 2015 19. 12 Bytes by Jeanette Winterson 2021 20. Homecoming by Elfie Shiosaki 2021 21. Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue by John McWhorter 2008 2...

I got to go op shopping today before my dental appointment. I have come home and found myself stacking up this pile of books.    Great haul, hey? But what I'm really thinking about right now is something that I often find fascinating - how it came to be that out of the thousands of book spines and covers I scanned in three different shops I came out with this particular pile, out of all the possibilities. It's always hard for a reader to choose just a few books when faced with a large collection. So how did I end up with this pile?  First, of course, there is the delightfully random nature of books in op shops. Nobody has specifically chosen these books for these shops. They have ended up here like flotsam that floated in on tides of post-consumer and pre-loved collections among the community. Staff and volunteers attempt to wrangle the tides into some kind of categories and relegate shelving. And then the fun for me is to find the treasure.  What makes these books t...