Tagged by ka_crow

1) Total number of books owned?

Books that belong to me personally? Three full bookcases' worth. But Pedar and I have never owned books separately, as we read each other's indiscriminately, so between us, eight floor-to-ceiling bookcases' worth (there used to be five bedrooms in this house, but now there are four and a library), all the ones lying round the house (maybe a hundred more?) and a few boxes still in storage from when we moved (six years ago!).

2) The last book I bought?

Embarrassingly, it was The Adventures of K-9 and other Mechanical Creatures. It's a Blue Peter-esque book published for the edification of young children in 1979, and has the Fourth Doctor and Romana in it as well as K-9 and the Daleks and it was basically so entirely adorable I couldn't resist. Even more embarrassingly, I've since left it in Ron.

3) The last book I read?

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, by Fannie Flagg. I borrowed it from Hannah weeks ago and have only just got around to finishing it. It was lovely, through and through; I have quibbles at the way it deals with a lesbian relationship but I may give it its own entry later.

I'm currently reading Permanent Rose, by Hilary McKay. It's part of a series (the other two are Saffy's Angel and Indigo's Star) that deals with a family of four children (all named after colours) and their artist mother who live in a house called The Banana House. They are kids' books but I do not care - they're also funny and emotional and the narrative is just brilliantly surreal.

4) 5 books that mean a lot to me?

1. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I read it at the very beginning of my fannish adventure, and spotting references to it in ordinary conversation has been winning me friends ever since.

2. All Creatures Great And Small, by James Herriot. I've probably read this more times than any other book. We used to have old family friends, Jean and Dave, when I was little and we were still living in Heswall, and once we were going somewhere on a long drive and I'd forgotten my book and I was quite distraught about it (I was that sort of child). Dave hunted around desperately for a book a seven-year-old would like, and finally handed me this one. I adored it, and years later, Jean and Dave are long dead but I still have the book, dated Madras, 1963.

3. Saffy's Angel, by Hilary McKay. See above.

4. Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett. My absolute favourite of the Discworld novels, because it's so deep and dark and tortured and just straighforwardly good. It now always reminds me of last year, the Discworld Quest and the hundreds of people who helped me on it.

5. Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome. Simultaneously the funniest book I have ever read and the only "classic" I really like. Still comfort reading.

5) Tag 5 people and have them fill this out on their ljs:

Whoever wants to, I guess.

A collection of last times

I went into the library yesterday to begin returning my stacks of books. As I was walking out again, Mrs Barry said, "You didn't read every book in the library."

I said nothing.

"I remember when I first met you, you were about this high" - her hand was three feet above the ground - "and you said you'd read everything you could."

"I had," I said feebly. "All the good ones." I had, you know. I'd slowly worked my way through every good book I could find. "But then you came and the new books came in and I couldn't keep up."

"You lost track! And now you never will read them all."

"No," I said forlornly.

"There'll be other libraries," she said soothingly, but I didn't want to be soothed.

"There won't be this one! And I won't be librarian, and there won't be fiction..."

And there won't, and I won't, and there won't - and she was laughing at me as I left but I can't believe I'm leaving the place I've lived and worked for seven years. It started to sink in this morning when we did a banoffee pie taste test (really, an incredibly long story) instead of having an actual Chemistry lesson. In the end I ambled into a GCSE lesson to feed Mrs Colvin pie - she ate it with pleasure while the class pointed out you shouldn't really eat it in the labs.

On Tuesday, I did what I do every Tuesday and wandered out of Biology with the chemgeeks, pausing the usual moment for someone or other to grub for a lunch pass, and then walk down the corridor, with its posters and Shakespeare quotes on the walls, to the door, where you show your lunch pass and skip the queue. Only it was the last time, and I never noticed. Afterwards, I realised that I went into lunch when I was eleven, scared beyond belief that no-one was going to sit with me, the food would be inedible, or worst of all that I would drop my tray. Seven years on, I have never dropped my tray. And if I could communicate only one thing to my younger self, it would be: if no-one sits with you, it doesn't matter; you're going to grow up and be bright and interesting, cut off your hair and find fandom; you're going to survive this.

Speaking of my younger self, I found my hymn book today. On the flyleaf is a bookplate - "This hymn book is presented to:" below a Merchants' crest, concordia parvae res crescunt, and my name and the date: September 10th, 1998. This Friday will be May 20th, 2005 - and ohmygod, it looks like we made it.

Friday: leavers' lunch; drinking wine and eating sandwiches with our teachers (except Rice-Oxley, who is on DofE); hopefully taking Mrs Stubbs and Mrs Peppin to the beach to feed them ice-cream and sending a ransom note to the school; doing a massive Art Attack with chairs in the quad; putting manganate (VII) down the toilets; in the end, dragging all our teachers to the pub to finish off.

Looks like we made it.