I've also read (for the first time) Francis Spufford's The Child That Books Built, which is an amazingly brilliant, if somewhat recursive, book about the joy of reading. It doesn't shy away from reading as escape and reading as addiction, but what it does best is convey the absolute joy of books, through talking about the books he read as a child. Thanks to
majorclanger and everyone else who recommended this, you were all right.In Provigo the other day, a boring supermarket where I do the boring bits of my shopping -- the best bit is where I pay and walk away from all of it, for them to deliver later -- I was walking idly up an aisle muttering something like "Ornage juice, yes, tomato paste, ick no, cereal, that's the cereal Randy eats in Cryptonomicon, pasta, no, got plenty, Lindt 70% two for one, yes" when a complete stranger asked me if I was Jo Walton. He turned out to be a very nice person who had seen me at Anticipation, and who reads my LJ (so hi!) but it was quite disconcerting all the same. Fame is weird. Not that I'm actually famous at all. I have the kind of demi-fame where I'm used to being recognised in cons, but never before in the supermarket... I'd hate to be Stephen King. I'd have to give up muttering while I shop.