This week, I have been reading poetry. I’ve always had a soft spot for this particular form of writing, preferring music with words to the melody itself, and poetry, when read in the proper setting — which in my case is with the heater on, the cold outside and a quilt pulled up to my chin — can be the most satisfactory reading there is.

So, this week, driven to it by lack of other reading material, and because I was rather curious, I picked up the intriguingly titled book The Tell-Tale Brain. Subtitled Unlocking The Mystery Of Human Nature, it’s not the kind of book I’d usually choose as bedtime reading, but my bookshelf was rather lean of fiction that week or anything historical, which would be my second choice, so neurology it was.

Regular readers will remember me raving about historical fiction and in particular, a set of books about the women of the Mughal empire.

So, for me, it’s been a slow week, reading wise. This is the problem with December, there’s always so much to do that sometimes your more, well, “intellectual” activities get slightly curtailed.

Now, you guys know I’m a sucker for books about places I know.

In Delhi, we’re having what I like to call “bestseller weather”. Outside, it’s a grey and gloomy November day and all anyone wants to do is lie under the quilt in bed and read till they’re glutted.

Obscure professions. Have I mentioned this before? They’re a bit of a “thing” of mine. I like reading about other people, other worlds, so far removed from mine that it feels like a different universe entirely. Air hostesses, explorers, drug dealers, ballet dancers, all with different everyday vocabulary and a routine that is the opposite of

I’m always very taken with stories of trauma. Aren’t we all? Oh, come on, you’ve slowed down to look at a car crash or paused to look at photos of disaster in a paper.

Of course I’m reading Such A Long Journey. Wouldn’t you be?

If you’re a regular reader of this column then you know my reading taste is fairly, well, eclectic.