Novels, and the pleasures of other people’s worlds

In the bookshop in St Andrews on Saturday.

Had a book token and a gift token.

Bought four novels and paid 74 pence.

Decided not to take a historical novel about Elizabethan martyrs – the blurb said, "enjoyable, bloody and brutish".

Decided I don't need any more novels about murder, mayhem and maggots.

Tried to buy a children's book, Klimt and His Cat – I do also read children's books though they have to be a bot different – this one is.

Did buy an Alexander McCall Smith for Sheila who has become a fan of this undemanding though not unsophisticated writer who seems to think human nature isn't all bleakness, blackness and bloodletting. I happen to believe he is right.

The one I'm looking forward to reading over the next couple of days, American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld – one of those social novels that explores human relationships, politics and how the two inevitably affect each other, for better, for worse and in ways not so easily categorised.

A favourite writer, Daniel Silva, writes about Israeli intelligence, the new Moscow underworld and the web of power, corrutpion and greed that provides fertile soil for terrorist activity.

And I've been a fan of Douglas Kennedy ever since I read The Big Picture, and discovered that he is always rewarding as a thoughtful, knowing and sympathetic teller of people's stories as they try to find their way out of whatever life throws at tem – as the blurb says,' he delivers the message that whatever hole you dig yourself into, you're probably not alone.'

So. Some good reading over the next few days, before the van delivers our stuff to our new house, and the priorities of making home take over from the pleasures of other people's worlds.