For some reason (I’m going with peer pressure) I decided to plough my way through all of the fiction in my Tsundoku . Annoyingly I managed this a lot faster than I had hoped, some of them were rubbish and I refuse to put myself through that any more, so I ended up in the horrifying situation where the only unread books in my home were non-fiction.

Don’t get me wrong, I love non-fiction…but that just ain’t right.

So I was treated to a trip into London last weekend where I took full advantage of a branch of Waterstones and spent like I was a Rockefeller. (Before The Coffee Gets Cold has already been consumed and passed on to the next reader – highly recommended for those who enjoy Japanese translations of quirky sci-fi).

I was also treated to a visit to the National Gallery where my day was made by the discovery of a Peder Balke picture:

• 

• 

This was literally a day or two after I had been moaning about not being able to find any of his work to buy as a print. The National Gallery came through for me again:

When you can find happiness in the small things then success looks like a reasonable pile of books and a postcard of a Norwegian seascape.

(I am aware that it is a privilege to be able to buy books pretty much at the drop of a hat, but I also support my local library and would be just as happy there too).