This question ought be…

… Rephrased as: What books have you read? The books I have yet to read stretch over several shelves, then there are those I have not got my hands on yet. I am not going to bore people with this book or that book, cause that’s not how my brain works. Instead I will start with or should I say I am currently ploughing through the late Michael Baigents book ‘ The Jesus Papers’. If you want to know more of it, look it up, a brief synopsis would be that the story of Jesus fund in Christian bible has been confusticated, altered and otherwise hidden to enable someone else’s agenda. Sound familiar? It makes a pleasant change, at least for a while from my usual diet of Third Reich material of which there are several more books on my reading list. Mercifully a lot of them have already been worked through, notes taken and compared with other sources. So to be honest reading the whole volume would probably be superfluous. A bit like going back and watching the same fil time and time again, despite knowing the story like the back of your hand. Both are a proper waste of time, and time as we is irreplaceable, it cannot be clawed back. So on that subject let me recommend a small book by Seneca the Younger ‘ On the shortness of life’ Is a small book only a hundred or so pages and a couple of hours of reading, though it should be taken in small doses, to let the words sink in.

Resigning myself to the fact I am a book work, I found more pleasure in books than people, libraries over parties, fact over fiction. Television failed to satisfy my curiousity and last time I check nothing had changed. Naturally one should be careful in what one reads, sifting through garbage to find pearls so to speak. Some people may be thinking snob right now and I have heard it to, not that I care what other people think. I think this is going off topic so back to the books. Fuck Seneca, fuck Baigent and stuff The Bible too. Which last incidentally, I have also read.

So unless a book store finds me first, which it most likely will. My current reading list looks like this… Several books on history, a couple of biographies and Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan. The latter picked up at a car boot sale for 20p. There is also the book leant me by my sister, by someone called Jasper Fforde, though 20 odd pages in has so far failed in whatever it was supposed to do. As an aside, why do some people spell their names with two F’s? A little research goes a long way and apparently it stems from Middle English, where there was no capital F, the pronunciation remains the same as a normal F and that is that. Amazing what you can learn off of the internet, though the dictionary may have had the same answer.

You see a lot of the books in my collection are mostly pictures, books on art and artists, cartoon stories about war from years ago and countless besides. There are volumes on horror films, the supernatural and behind the drape… Well that is my business and its nothing illegal, nor distasteful. There have been several clear outs over the years, loads of novels have gone to new homes. A massive pile of old comics too, all gone. Missed? Not a chance the stories get recycled time and time again, so nothing much is actually being missed, but the next generation think they are getting new and in a way they are. There are three books on the American Civil War that need reading through and one on Ulysees S. Grant. I would like the complete collection of work by Raymond Briggs. ( Fungus The Bogeyman) But whether they want me is another matter, it would certainly require another move around and new shelves, this just after buying two 2nd hand sets of. Saying that the horrid book on Auschwitz can probably go. It really is not very cheerful and might be a good gift for some relative or other. It’s absence would make space for lets say a collection of Raymond Briggs books, which would be awesome and in total contrast to mass murder which the Nazis did with such finesse and efficiency. More on the Nazis in other blog I think.

Right, I think that’s enough of what books I have to read, want to read or am reading. The original question is now forgotten and I don’t care. Having told myself I would try to write every day even if the subject matter is abhorrent. Is important, it provides and breaks the day up into manageable portions, prev3ents doom scrolling and reminds me of the importance of self expression and the many forms in which creativity manifests.