Wrapped Up In Books (Reprise)

Reader's Feast is my favourite Melbourne bookstore. It may not have the cred of Brunswick Street Bookstore, or that little nook up the top of Bourke Street that I've forgotten the name of, or any other independent bookstore for that matter. But what it does have is a members' card that totals up your purchases every six months and gives you a gift voucher to the value of 10% of what you spent over that period. As well as that what it also has is the best linguistics section of any store in town, and it is this section that I find myself scurrying over towards almost every occasion I visit.


As I've spent a good deal of time in the section, what has become apparent to me of late is that David Crystal of the University of Bangor (North Wales) has become ridiculously prolific. It seems every 3 or 4 months he's got a new book on the shelves regarding some linguistic theory or language oddity. For those who don't know, David Crystal is sort of the John Peel of the English language - a bit of a doddering, slightly eccentric all-seeing-eye. Listeners to Radio National's Lingua Franca programme would be quite aware of him. Today, whilst perusing the shelves, I noticed his latest book By Hook Or By Crook: A Journey In Search Of English. The book is a bit of a travelogue of Crystal's as he fuffs around English speaking parts of the globe picking up on linguistic characteristics he finds striking. It's a book that has possibly been written many times before, however I doubt with such expertise, insight and quirk.

I tucked the book underneath my arm and headed across the store to the Fiction section. There was something I needed to investigate. A couple of months ago I received an email from Kat McLeod upon her having returned from a holiday in the United States of America. In this email she informed me that she had read a book on the flight from LA and that the main character had reminded her of me. The book was The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time by Mark Haddon, and so I googled its title in order to find out some more information about why she would think such a thing. What I found was this:

The story is written in the first-person narrative of Christopher Boone, a 15-year-old boy living in Swindon, Wiltshire in 1998, who is described as having Asperger syndrome, although the behaviour he displays throughout the novel suggests a more severe condition on the autistic spectrum.

Kat insisted that her comments were not intended to be offensive and that I should read the book myself. Just as I located the book and reached out to take it off the shelf I heard a stern voice behind me say "Excuse me, have you been taking photos of our shelves?", turning around I replied in a meek voice "Umm...yes", the lady then asked me why I would be doing such a thing? "Umm...well.. I have this blog, and I write stories about things I do, and sometimes I like to illustrate with photographs". "Oh, that's alright then", she said, "That's great!". Although apparently not great enough for her to ask for the address.
I turned back around, plucked The Curious Incident... from the shelf and began to read a few pages. As I did so I started to realise what Kat had meant and felt quite flattered, so flattered, in fact, that I decided I would purchase the book and read it in its entirety.