Book journal

One thing we don’t do on the Rust is product endorsement for financial gain. Readers may not realise that when, for example, a celebrity is recommending somewhere or something in a newspaper he/she is expecting a high payment.

So when I recommend the Moleskine range of journals it is because they are tried and tested and I like them.

In a mutual exchange of presents with Nancy Bright-Thompson I gave her a travel journal from Moleskine and she reciprocated with a book journal from the same source.

Instead of watching the distinctly mediocre TV offerings over the so-called festive period or making a large family lunch – I had a bracing walk and light lunch with my brother and his wife – I had time, energy and will to inscribe in the book my library.

This proved an enjoyable task of bringing 10 volumes at a time to my reading table and logging them in my journal, a rich blue leather-bound volume with a page dedicated to each book.

Some books I quite forgot I possessed, others I did not realise were inscribed by the author; there was also the odd first edition, some beautiful leather bound illustrated volumes I bought from the Parisian antiquarian bookshop Jean du Bonnot 25 years ago.

There were my Daphne du Maurier books, and some old favourites going back to the sixties.

In these days of a kindle, a library is a relic of the past but few things give me more pleasure in life than to put on some Mozart, pour myself a glass of red wine and settle down with a book for an hour or so.