Sam Neill almost crushed my dog. Well, to be honest, it wasn’t actually the actor’s fault. I might have been culpable, looking back. But, your honour, I couldn’t help myself.
“Books are everywhere in my new home, groaning on shelves, piled up as makeshift coffee tables, peeking out of handbags.” Credit: ISTOCK
You see, next to my bed is a stack of books so high that when I added Neill’s biography, it turned the pile into a Jenga-like debacle, toppling the lot. My French bulldog, Roxy, whose snooze was rudely interrupted by the crash, gave me a death stare as if to say, “I told you so.” I could have sworn she even rolled her eyes.
Books are everywhere in my new home, groaning on shelves, piled up as makeshift coffee tables, peeking out of handbags. Cookbooks lie open on my kitchen bench, the photos of exquisite dishes teasing me, and I also keep several by my bath to savour during my next soak.
There is always a novel in my car to entertain me should I ever arrive somewhere early (i.e. never) and books friends have written that are so precious I would grab them in a fire before anything else (other than Roxy, of course!). Then there’s a biography signed by my favourite PM, Gough Whitlam, so treasured I check the hands of anyone handling it for cleanliness.
Yep, I am obsessed.
I can trace this fervent love back to a small child reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, so bedazzled by Narnia that I wanted to reside there in my mind rather than re-enter everyday life.
I recall the marvel of the leather-lined encyclopedias my father bought after being pressured by a door-to-door salesman and realising they magically held almost all the answers to the questions that sprang from my incessant curiosity.
I was awe-struck by the imaginations of fiction writers who could create characters so vivid I believed they actually existed.
As a teenager, I was both appalled and transfixed by Humbert Humbert’s sordid desire for the nubile Lolita in Vladimir Nabokov’s seminal novel. Another book, Helter Skelter, about the 1969 Manson Family murders, ignited an addiction for true crime that remains to this day.
When a beloved actor almost crushed my dog, I knew my love of books was obsessive
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14.12.2023
Sam Neill almost crushed my dog. Well, to be honest, it wasn’t actually the actor’s fault. I might have been culpable, looking back. But, your honour, I couldn’t help myself.
“Books are everywhere in my new home, groaning on shelves, piled up as makeshift coffee tables, peeking out of handbags.” Credit: ISTOCK
You see, next to my bed is a stack of books so high that when I added Neill’s biography, it turned the pile into a Jenga-like debacle, toppling the lot. My French bulldog, Roxy, whose snooze was rudely interrupted by........
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