Nostalgia
Jamie Cullum makes me nostalgic, and with my thoughts already tinctured with perished moments, the reminiscence can only accumulate exponentially. But it's a productive kind of nostalgia - I've just spent nearly an hour trying to track down a book from my past - a children's book I read when I was 7 and have remembered vividly ever since. In my mind, Rebecca's World occupies an eternal place on my bookshelf of childhood adoration, along with books like The Phantom Tollbooth and Kiss the Dust. But I've never been able to find Rebecca's World until now, when I've discovered that it's out of print and going on sale on Amazon's Used & New from £50 upwards.
My dilemma. Admit defeat and surrender to the laws of demand and supply? Or lay siege to Red Fox with my sharpest dinnerware until they consent to reprint it? Christ, I really, really need to find that book again. I'm not even half joking: I'm seriously considering blowing £50 on someone's used paperback edition.
I need to read it, and own it. Tell me which butt-ugly cthonic extradimensional monstrosities I must sleep with to make this be so.