Brain food

Reading books nourishes your brain. A few days ago someone who often professes surprise when I use a word they don't know, or mention a fact they think is quite esoteric, asked me how on earth I knew the word 'meniscus' and what it meant. My reply was that I?d first come across it in First Year Chemistry 38 years ago. But most of my knowledge doesn?t stem from old lessons. It stems from reading. Not just factual books either. There is a lot of learning to be derived from stories. You just absorb a lot of stuff from fiction, without feeling like you?re learning anything.

And as if to reinforce the point, the very day following that conversation, I came across the word 'meniscus' yet again. It was just sitting there, being a word on a page in this novel. It?s ?London Fields? by Martin Amis. It?s just a crazy story but it features the word ?meniscus?.

One day I?ll write a massive raving blog about my ?big 3? ? Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson and 2666 by Roberto Bolano. And I mean raving. Foaming at the mouth raving.

Today I?m just content to capture a moment from my workday lunchtimes routine, involving escape into a book over coffee in a semi-deserted bar.