Why you should be afraid of Virginia Woolf

A few months ago I came across a book in a charity shop. I had three reasons to be pleased to find it: Firstly, that it was in English. Secondly, it covered the years 1915 – 1919, around the years of the First World War, a period which interests me a great deal and thirdly, it was the first volume of The Diary of Virginia Woolf.

I didn’t intend to start to read the book straight away as I had others in my ‘to read’ pile already. So I placed it on a shelf with some other books in the bedroom.

A couple of days later I noticed that some books had fallen over, so I straightened them up and thought no more about it. The next day the same happened – and the next. Virginia was always upright next to these books. So, smiling to myself I moved the books around. The following morning I discovered, not only the first books had fallen over but also the new neighbours to Virginia’s diary. Pretty soon no book on the shelves in the bedroom remained upright – except for one. Virginia was always triumphantly upright. In the end I grew tired of this game and left the books as they were.

It wasn’t until I bought some more books; including Earnest Hemmingway’s ‘A Farewell to Arms’ that I decided to tidy up shelves again. I placed the two unread books together.

It seems to have done the trick.