A Reminder of Roots

Browsing in a bookshop in a post-lunch haze of contentment is a simple pleasure but one to be treasured.
Even better when the bookshop is not your run-of-the-mill, generic Waterstones specimen that has tables of Richard and Judy recommendations and is indistinguishable from any other populist book outlet. Staffed by a Bill Bryson look-alike, light and airy, appealingly arranged and with a cafe selling hefty slabs of cake attached - perfection.

The words 'pottering' and 'mooching' were coined specifically for a bookshop experience such as this. Bumping into bookshelves and fellow browsers is commonplace when your head is buried in the first few pages of a book that caught your eye. You forget where you are, and jump when your mother comes up behind you with a query about a paperback she picked from a display. 'Is this that book we...?' But she need not finish her sentence as her daughter has the same book open in her hands, selected from the packed shelf before her, and is a number of pages in. Sometimes a moment can charm and astound. You can remove the girl from her cultural and literary mentors and influencers, but you can't remove the lasting effects.

A quick pit-stop at the comic book/graphic novel emporium and straight on to the British Library! It's a hard life.