On the shelves

It surprised me as much as it did the people around me. One minute, I was fine and full of August plans; the next, I was lying on the sofa and full of a strange sensation. And on the sofa is where I remained for two weeks.

Look, my chronic illness not something I often mention because, frankly, it is boring. It is boring to whoever has to listen to me talk about it and it is as sure as hell boring for me to talk about it. It limits what I can physically manage and means I'll be on immune-suppressants (the same ones used in chemotherapy) for the rest of my life. Fun times!

Daily, apart from the limitations, it doesn't impinge on what I do. I can still drive, work, meet up with people. I can still raise a coffee mug to my mouth. I can still read.

However, let myself get overtired, stressed and too busy, and this illness of mine will raise its head, snap its bloody jaws and say "a-ha! Now I'll make you rest!" So, by the time August rolled round and a particularly stressful contract came to an end, the beast snapped and it hit me with its worst for the next two weeks. It confined me to bed and sofa, reducing my movements to a slow shuffle. I had no energy to sit at my desk, to lift a pen. All I could do - did do - was sleep, wake, read.

On repeat.

In hindsight, I am hugely grateful to it. When you are bed-bound through no fault or decision of your own, the very best thing you can do is read. Leave your own head, your own faulty body, and fly off to new worlds, new bodies, new lives. Well, some new. I am an inveterate re-reader - I have to be or I would be living in my local bookshop, eating dust and bees (don't eat bees, not ever) - and for the first week, was able to pick and choose titles from the shelves, amongst the rocks, postcards and strange things I have found and been unable to part with. My shelves are an organic, living entity, I think.

Hound of the Baskervilles - light and suitably Gothic for a person in a glum mood. Call for the Dead - ditto light, not so Gothic but definitely world-weary. The Colour of Magic - I needed to laugh after the le Carre. Dancers in Mourning - sometimes only Albert Campion will do. First Wives Club - gloriously, unabashedly trashy. It Could Happen to You - light, beloved and set in my beloved Highlands. Devices and Desire - at this point, I think I'm improving and able to hold something heavier than my coffee mug. Mrs Miniver - no I can't, back to something light. Calypso and Lets Explore Diabetes with Owls - I've just heard David Sedaris on the radio and now I need to reread what I have of his, which is not nearly enough. Love in a Cold Climate - return to uber-Englishness required. Lady Audley's Secret - this is at the end of the month, and I'm well enough to chew my way through this stonking Victorian mystery.

I also made huge inroads into my teetering, tottering to-be-read pile. Honestly, it had reached such proportions that, unable to bear the silent guilt of them all, I'd split them into two piles and hidden them in different locations. Consider those piles reduced to...just one and a half. I was only ill for two weeks, after all.

Mother Mary Comes to Me - I will never ever again complain about my own mother, or take my great good fortune in having her as my mum for granted. Jeez. I mean. Just read it. Motherwell - unfortunate to come in second to MMCTM and therefore suffer by the comparison. The Postcard - devastating if strangely structured; read on own with tissues. A Complete Kindness - good but not as good as All My Puny Sorrows. Life in a Cold Climate - okay, now I'm over the Mitfords and the snobbery they induce in those who write about them. Receipts from the Bookshop - lovely and still not quenching my dream of owning a bookshop.

By the time the two weeks were over and I was able to drive myself to the library, shuffle along the stacks and treat myself to some new books that didn't cost me anything, I needed fresh blood. New fiction, to be precise.

Let Me go Mad in my Own Way - I keep saying it to people and I'll keep saying it: "we do not know enough about the terrible things that happened in Ireland". Heart, the Lover - oh, so beautiful and sad and gorgeous, I sat for a long time with it in my hands, thinking about it. Last week, I brought my own copy, so I can reread and reread and reread.

Unfinished: Wellness. It is okay to not finish a book if you start reading and find you don't care what happens. Read the last chapter and send it back out into the universe. Life is too short to force yourself through books you don't like. I'm going to have this engraved on my coat of arms...should I ever get a coat of arms.

Twenty books in August. What a privilege to be lifted out of my ailing, failing body and carried gently into these other lives, to live silently alongside them. What a delicious joy.

And the beast? Currently held at bay, it snarls in the darkness, waits for me to forget, become less vigilant. That's okay. I'll always have books.