Reading to London

I go through phases of heavy reading. Once in a while, perhaps twice a year, I can’t read enough. It becomes like drinking, and I pour the words from the page in one long glug glug glug. It is a thirst for stories, for connection, for the knowledge of others; a thirst to find those with common ground to relate, despair and elate. These spells usually last a month or two, and on any given week I can knock out three or four books. Today I managed half a book of essays, some Don DeLillo and a few pages of the Road Less Traveled. And as I'm starting to wonder when this will come to an end, exhuasted from my reading at twelve o'clock at night on the last tube home, I pick up a discarded copy of the London Lite, and like I've eaten half a packet of peanuts and a salami, I begin to smack my lips.