Books on display

When I am struggling to summon the enthusiasm to roll out of bed in the morning - I don't do mornings, if I can help it - I usually make a blind stab at the radio, then doze thorough whatever is on, until the time checks tell me I really should be getting up and there is, after all, a potential cup of tea waiting downstairs in the kettle. Which is how I half heard an item about a politician who had apparently been pictured with some very heavy reading matter, which had prompted a slightly tongue in cheek discussion on what the choices on your bookshelf say about you.

I have to say that the proverbial visitor from Mars (who, I have just realised has replaced the wartime 'little man' - you can tell I am knee deep in the day job) would have a very confused idea about me from the books on my shelves. A certain retailer must have a lot of fun too when the little robots attempt to offer me some selections. The front room is mostly research - World War Two is all over the floor, as I am currently working. The shelves have my own books, some from other writers, mostly friends, as yet unread, and a glorious selection of writing research books - travel guides, history other than WW2, gardens and art, the witchy/magical end of folklore, exhibition catalogues ... The man who came to read the meter last week must have been a bit confused, but we had a nice chat about being a writer when he saw my books.

The dining room has my small collection of vintage crime, my old university text books - poetry and plays - and my cookery books. In the hall there are books on the way to or from the library. Upstairs are my keepers - Georgette Heyer, Mary Stewart, C S Lewis, Jane Aikin Hodge, Jayne Anne Krentz, Nora Roberts, Stephen Donaldson, Jilly Cooper, Tolkein ...

At the moment the bedside table has my Kindle and that has a similarly disorienting collection from all my interests.

That's my reading selection - and I have no idea what it says about me.