The Bookish Old Soul

  Hi. You know me now, and you know I read. I read like a chain-smoker rips their way through thirty or forty a day. Book-wise, I read two books a week. I don’t smoke. People say it’s all for the best — because smoking is bad for your chest. Dolly Parton and Victoria Coren Mitchell beg to differ. In the 0.001% chance the ladies are reading this — because nothing, contrary to GCSE Maths, is impossible — sorry. I was in Waterstones — like I always am when I want new reading material. People think I'm in there every Saturday, but I'm not. My reading alternates between Harry Potter, The Hobbit, and Dracula — and sometimes Roald Dahl if I’m depressed. Next time you see me — if you know me — look. I’m always reading those three. Anyway. The book I got was called The Anxious Generation. It gave the same vibe as the question: Without the use of a calculator, answer the first six digits of pi. It was the most mind-numbingly boring and stupid book in the world. It blamed the down...

Hi, Everybody has obsessions. For some, it's a sexy celebrity who'll never know they exist, unrealistic comics about gay teen romance — or even, and this is a true one, collecting books they already own three or four sets of. It doesn't take Hercule Poirot to figure it out — I was talking about me. Declan McKenna (there’s a particular song that made fifteen-year-old me start to realize that my obsession with the music wasn’t entirely about the music, but I’ll let you decide for yourself), Heartstopper (warning: even the straightest, butchest bloke will start crying — just ask anyone who’s seen it on Netflix ), and my favorite book series, Harry Potter . Now, say what you want about J.K. Rowling — to quote The Simpsons , "knock her on the kisser or..." (my teachers read this), but she can write. And there’s something nice about those old-timey ‘90s - ‘00s covers. Whilst working at Cancer Research last term, I found three first-edition Harry Potter books — Book ...