dear diary, i’ve been reading.

I’ve got a mound of bread dough that’s rising – if I didn’t kill the yeast by putting it in lukewarm water that was slightly on the warmer side.

While I wait, let me tell you about some of my latest reads. Yes, yes – I’ve been reading books. This will come as a shock to precisely zero (0) people.

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty was an eye-opening book, full of example after example of human greed and fear of creative destruction that can lead to a nation’s downward spiral.

I found it fascinating – that the fate of nations is written in their past. I told my brother this over a late night peppermint tea, thinking ‘wow, what a beautiful turn of phrase‘. There was a brief silence. The pompousness of the statement settled on the table between us. We laughed.

(What I meant to say, was that extractive economies doth not a flourishing and prosperous future make.)

The Good Life And How To Live It has some sound advice; some of the very best memories I have are with the people I am lucky enough to have in my life.

In fact, the entire book – a multi-generational study of certain families in America – can be summed up in the below quote:

… the good life is not a destination. It is the path itself, and the people who are walking it with you.

The Good Life

I enjoy my own company (9.5/10, if I do say so myself), but when something funny/awful/hilarious/fill-in-the-blank happens and there’s no one to glance over and share it with … well, it can feel a little hollow.

Chums: How A Tiny Caste Of Oxford Tories Took Over The UK lit a fire of outrage under my butt and I wanted nothing more than to time travel, seize certain Tories by their lapels and give them all a good shaking.

… but as that’s quite impossible, I chose to be consumed with rage whilst snuggled cosily in bed (in one reading) and scribbling notes in red ink when a lunchbreak reading filled me with disgust (in another).

I’ve mislaid the paper now, so everyone will miss out on my exquisitely cutting prose. So sad. How will you cope?

You know what’s the opposite of disgust though? What I’m going to feel once I’ve finished baking this loaf of bread. Obviously.

(And don’t think I’m NOT going to tell you about the ONE BOOK THAT HAS SHAKEN MY LIFE AND COINCIDENTALLY MADE ME BAKE BAGELS.)

(Because I AM.)