It's done

October is dead, long live November. It was much harder than I thought to go 31 days without reading, but it's done and I'm a better woman for it. For a little while, at least.

I spent the weekend with friends in print: I read Maggie Alderson's whimsies, Adele Horin on school league tables and Stephanie Dowrick on reading, of all things. Stephanie was writing about reading as part of a communion of ideas; that writing and reading are fundamental social activities. She wrote: "We read books individually, but part of their wonder is how authentically they connect us to other people, regardless of where those people are."

I exit one book-free month in compete agreement with Stephanie, and with some guidelines for future reading:

• Reading is food. Choose wisely, limit the junk, balance main meals and dessert. I'm talking about a little less fantasy, but I'm really putting the stopper on shiny Sunday supplement stories about trends, food and relationship case studies. Life is too short for weekly 'magazines' with 'Life' on the masthead.
• No reading at breakfast, except weekends if I've been good.
• Consider where the other fresh inputs are coming from; reading definately, but travel, new experiences, new people have to be on the agenda. (Life suddenly looks exhausting.)
• Reading at night is a great and good thing.