To buoy the flagging mood, I went to buy fresh pulp - even though I am running out of floor space in my sub-cave to construct new leaning towers of books.

I found two hardback volumes of Solzhenitsyn's opus The Gulag Archipelago for 4 bucks a piece, along with the usual haul of slender poetry volumes.

Trust those crazy Russians to write book that can damage your foot, if you have an 'oopsy' moment while reading them. Also most definately not comfortable to put these tomes on the chest, and read oneself to sleep!