The multitude of books is making us ignorant

Finally after much longing, planning and browsing charity shops, ebay and online catalogues I have my new bookshelves. Of course after all the delusional attempts at individuality I've opted for the simplest, most mass produced bookshelves known to bibliophiles - IKEA Billy in plain and simple white.

I'd worried my already cramped bedroom would have been somewhat overpowered - and I guess it us. But rather than monolithic the shelves are warm and colourful and their additional depth (double that of the books themselves) helps the room feel a little more spacious than it really is.

It was tremendous fun - dragging books from boxes I hadn't opened in years, remembering ideas and imagery from years ago. I've become such a lazy reader in the past few years, reading books from bestseller lists, thrillers and detective novels (I know, I know they have their merits - don't let it be said I underestimated Dashiell Hammett) and avoiding novels with subtler themes. Finding, for example, books from Caribbean writers and remembering the first rush of memories, colour and excitement I got from reading them for the first time was a real blast and rendered the hours of self assembly misfortune somewhat worth it.

I'll end now with another fairly new addition to my room - I'm just back from a wee trip to London and raided the British Museum and Natural History Museums for butterfly inspired postcards - I'm building up quite a collection and decided to stick a few on the wall.

I'm wrestling ethically with buying some framed taxidermy butterflies from Thailand via ebay. They are extremely beautiful and I'm not sure whether they could be mistreated - wouldn't the person using them just pick dead ones from the ground? At the same time I wouldn't kill an insect in my house unless absolutely necessary so framing insect corpses and hanging them on the wall is probably not ok.  I guess I know the answer is no and just need to accept it!

Ok so first ever blog done and dusted - I certainly had more to say than I'd expected (thought none of it particularly interesting). I was really planning to use the blog to publish some of my craft projects - quilting will be my next post  - until then adieu!!