Inexplicably a pile of books revealed themselves in a clothes cupboard this morning. Revealing books I have hunted high and low for in recent years, not just in this house.They have been missing in action for a very long time. Despite being a woman with several book piles this pile is significant because it holds some books that I would never have given away. I have offered to loan them only to be foiled because they were not where I expected them to be. One of them I wanted to talk about at my book club last week. We had been reading a rather patchy novel about women’s experience in India.

I knew I had owned something better.

The pile is really inconsistent I cannot begin to understand how they have gathered in a cupboard meant for clothes.

London by Edward Rutherfurd has been lost forever. I had always planned to buy another copy and just haven’t got round to it. Put down some time in 1997 when I was a very busy woman. When I opened it at the turned down corner I had exactly remembered how far I had got. No need to read those 209 pages again with just 1090 more pages to read. But as a holiday read it is going to have to be a Kindle.

One last one, more fragile and precious than the others.

The very first book I read, that told me how to draw buildings. An odd choice for a small child but I suspect I was an odd child in a house that was not really child friendly. I also read their encyclopaedias avidly!

Published in 1946 , it belonged to my uncle who lived abroad, I found it at my grandparents house during their once weekly child care. I practiced perspective often, just doodling really. Filling in time usefully and being good was considered a very good thing.

Quite how these books gathered together in a cupboard I have no idea. I am very glad to have them back and sitting comfortably in a bookcase , where they belong