Somehow it happened that my bookshelves filled up with books I don't much like or care about. not 'somehow', but quite simply - when someone gave me a book that I loved, or I borrowed one and loved it and then bought it, it was almost inevitable that somewhere along the line I would want to lend it to someone else. and then they would keep it, and I would forget - almost entirely. if the book did flash into my mind I would wonder where it was, and have no idea who I might have lent it to. and because I mostly remember just what I can see, those flashes are rare. a number of these books have dedications in them - so I wonder who has my copies of Laurie Lee's Cider with Rosie, or John Scott's What I have Written and Before I Wake, or Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians, knowing from the flyleaves that they are mine and that they mark something. Two copies of Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children have gone, and now I have a pact with myself not to lend the third copy out. Someone has the very well worn copy of The English Patient that I used to write my honours thesis. I guess whoever those people are, I cared about them enough to want to give them something to read.

And then on the other side, I have never really felt secure enough to spend money on books, and rarely relax in bookshops. Much of what stays with me are the gifts from people who didn't know me well, the inherited books, the bargain table risks, the course fillers, the review books, books bought to help me assess theses and so on.

Now that I have a little money to think I think - if you are the sort of person who only remembers what you can see, this is a bad way to live. To give away what you love and keep what you don't, looking every day at drudge thoughts, drudge moments. And now I have the room to feel embarrassed about it. So lately I'm getting into this habit - that when a lost book flashes into my mind I go to an online bookshop and get it. I've decided that it doesn't matter too much whether I would love it now, just that I did love it, and that makes it worth having around.

among today's purchases are A High Wind in Jamaica, and The Virgin Suicides, and a proper edition of Emily Dickinson. My 1940-something Selected with bastardized punctuation is all I have for now. It has a very old note in it that reads - "Keep this. I don't want it. Are you sure it was Dickinson and not Edna Maillant (?) - the American poet you liked? One or two nice ones here."