Three weeks into my month of michelle, I am coming face to face with my essential nature.

I am a glutton for books. I read greedily, snatching chapters over breakfast and one last paragraph before I have to dash out the door to work. I get personally attached to characters, criticising their weaknesses and marvelling at their miraculous stregnths. The critic in me swells and picks apart plots and narrative devices. Inconsistencies in the storyline glare like neon signs. (did anyone else notice that suddenly Harry had his wand back once they were out of the forbidden forest? I thought the horrible Umbridge woman had taken it.)

two nights in a row I have picked up a book over dinner and not put it down again until it was done. I end up hunched over a dirty dinner plate in a too-bright kitchen, unaware of my discomfort because I am not really there.

I wonder if this is healthy? I am probably suffering from some sort of literary addiction. or at least showing signs of some sort of anti-reality disorder. I must admit that I am happy when I am dissolved in fiction. And even happier when I am wandering around waterstones, the nicest bookstore in cork, and they have a sale on. Happiest yet when I am lying out in the sun reading a paperback on the grass. I spent a good few hours at the festival on the weekend in this position, completely content.

In any case, I very highly reccomend the book at the top of my list right now – Life of Pi by Yann Martel. It is by a Canadian author, and it is absolutely brilliant. Very clever. Poignant. Articulate. Illustrative. It is one of the few books that really captures the beautiful order in the chaos that is God.

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