Those unread books in your collection

Howard's End is on the Landing, by Susan Hill

A friend whose taste I trust implicitly has heartily recommended this book -- which sounds a must-read for me, as it seems such a novelty.

"This is a book for book owners," she says.

"It's a book I found recently and it's about a woman who, like most of us with lots of books, goes looking for a book on her shelves and finds some she hasn't read, some she has no memory of buying, some that she's never returned to the owner, and she queries her shelving logic. In the end she decides she will not buy any more books for a year and will read and re-read off her shelves. (That bit is not encouraging for authors! but I bet she couldn't go through a year without acquisitions.)

"Susan Hill is a novelist of whom I'd never heard but must now look for. She seems to have been part of London literary life and talks about going, as a young English student, to a party, arriving at the door with a tall pleasant man and when they enter everyone says, "Oh, here's Possum" - T.S.Eliot.

"She also says that Garamond is her favourite typeface, along with Perpetua and a particular typeface that was designed by Ralph Beyer for the new Coventry Cathedral - all its orders of service and notices are in this typeface and Susan Hill says, "If you cut me open, I daresay whatever is carved upon my heart will be in Ralph Beyer lettering".

I love it!