A New Term, A New Pile of Books......

I'm in a bit of a book frenzy at the moment - courtesy of a small unexpected pension lump-sum bonus. It started off respectably enough: a second-hand copy of Alexander McCall Smith's The Sunday Philosophy Club (which, on first reading a couple of years ago, I had hated enough to leave it behind in the holiday apartment - I had failed to 'get' its subtle observation). It is pure comfort reading, gentle, wryly amusing and deep enough to provide some food for thought. I also bought the husband another Neil Gaiman (Smoke and Mirrors), as he'd finished Neverwhere which he enjoyed immensely. Then my fiscal prudence specs slipped somewhat: my response to needing to study is generally to buy more books, as if the mere act of buying them was equivalent to absorbing the knowledge therein (I actually realise that this is not true....). I kind of justified the expense by reasoning that the expenditure was in fact a very small proportion of my forthcoming 'stipend' (what a lovely old-fashioned word!) and that they might contain some insightful nugget that would illuminate my whole PhD. The lists comprises of Coles & Dodd's Reading German (for my upcoming German language-reading course in October), Reading Paul by Michael Gorman, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Re-Reading of Justification in Paul by Douglas Campbell and The Philosopher's Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods by Julian Baggini and Peter Fosl. Quite a list to get through. Quite a heap on the bedroom floor! Oh, and a second-hand copy of Your PhD Companion by Dr Stephen Marshall and Dr Nick Green from the Oxfam bookshop, which I read practically all the way through in Starbucks this afternoon.