Gman, my partner who builds my beloved bookshelves, is a binge reader of note. And by that I mean he binge reads specific authors. He has gone through all the Jack Reachers and David Baldaccis. He goes on deep dives Googling all the characters, the plots and the authors, researching them, reading reviews and getting whatever information he can. Now he’s reading Long Way Round and Long Way Down, about Ewan McGregor’s TV show in which he and his pal Charley Boorman go on epic motorcycle journeys. He is obsessed with the series, watching it a few too many times to admit it to me.

I can understand bingeing a series of books, where the characters are the same, but I don’t think I could binge read an author’s whole catalogue. This December, for my light, trashy reads, I did return to The Southern Vampire series by Charlaine Harris (the TV series True Blood is loosely based on it). It’s all about vampires, werewolves, faeries and bad romance and, in the centre of it, is Sookie Stackhouse, who lives in a small southern US town called Bon Temps (pronunciation — Barn Tarmp). There are 13 books in the series, but it’s light, fun reading, so easy to devour in one sitting. No thick tomes here. I did read other books in between and have not read all of Harris’s books or series. I needed a breather, maybe from the tone, writing and subject matter, so I tended to jump between nonfiction and fiction so my brain felt as if it was getting fed something else. ..