For a long time now I’ve felt judged by the stacks of books that have sat on my desk and bedside table, expectant; unread; gathering allergy-inducing dust. A once Matilda-like appetite for literature was quashed, I think, by a decades-worth of university and the directed/instrumentalised kind of reading it requires, as well as by the mushrooming of my interest in cinema—which gradually became the default story-telling medium I turned to for comfort and edification, even as I continued to accrue books (many cast-off or foolishly ‘loaned’ to me by friends), ever optimistic, or maybe just in denial, as to their fate once in my possession.

In the disconcertingly ill-defined period following the completion of my PhD, however—a bright, blank new year stretching out before me—I resolved to make a habit of recreational reading again. Also, my boyfriend broke up with me—an unrelated occurrence, but one that meant I was about to have a lot more time to myself in the evenings than I was used to. So it seemed like a better time than most to get back on the wagon, as it were. Equipped with a suite of recommendations, many conveniently accompanied by the books themselves being pressed into my hands (amongst them Gone Tomorrow by Gary Indiana; The Purloined Clinic by Janet Malcolm; My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh; Exquisite Pain by Sophie Calle—I promise they’ll be returned to their trusting, rightful owners), I chose to read the one that had just been given to me by my newly-minted ex first—because I’m a masochist, and because it was short.