Following a visit to Oxford Brookes University, where scientists were testing some Yeti hairs, I popped into the Oxfam shop on Cowley Road to find some more tall stories.
But I bypassed the fiction and grabbed instead a beautiful Chess Players Handbook.
It was written by Howard Staunton, one of the great chess champs of the 1800s. He wrote the book in the 1840s, round about the same time that he organised a big chess tournament in London.
My edition was dated 1893, so it was definitely not a first edition, but still a bargain at £2.49 and I look forward to tackling some of the chess puzzles.
Today, I sauntered down to the Bodleian Library, where curators are displaying some of Franz Kafka's original manuscripts.
I gazed in wonder at the original manuscript for one of Kafka's great tales, Metamorphosis, which I first read when I was about 12.
I tried to find a copy in Blackwell's but failed and instead picked up a copy of Stephen King's On Writing, which was published in 2000.
Other books on my bedside table include the new Kate Atkinson, When Will There Be Good News?, and Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr Whicher.
Have a good weekend.
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