Frances Whiting is a News Corp Australia journalist and newspaper columnist. She recently penned a humorous piece on book addiction that appeared in Qweekend Magazine (readership 200 000+). Frances granted SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK permission to reprint the article here.

The other day, my husband said he would like to have a ‘discussion’ – a discussion being another name for a fight for married people – with me about my books. I have quite a few of them.

How many? Well, put it this way – if our local library ever closed down, I could just put up a few signs outside of my house, pop out some orange cones for parking and whamo – I’d be in business.

So yes, I have quite a few (hundred) books and when I bring home new ones, I hide them from my husband the way other women hide their Amazon purchases.

My husband John feels I have a BOOK ADDICTION, that this is an increasingly serious problem and during our ‘discussion’ suggested I might like to ‘rein it in”. I said he might like to rein himself in because that’s the sort of mature person I am.

After our ‘discussion’, where I agreed to not buy any more books for a specified period of time, I bought some more and hid them by concealing them in supermarket grocery bags. This system was working very well – honestly there are times when I feel I am wasted as a journalist when I could be part of an international smuggling ring – until the other day.

I was smuggling a few more in when he looked at me just as I was making my getaway up the stairs.

“What’s in the bags?” he asked. “Groceries” I squeaked. “Really,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Well why are you taking them upstairs? Those had better not be books, Frances.” “Books!” I exclaimed, “the very idea.”

He had the right idea, though, and he might have a point. I probably do have too many books, but as far as addictions go, surely this is the best one to have.

I’m not a shoe girl. Or a handbag girl. Or a designer label girl. I am, however, a Dunne girl. A Hornby girl. A Wesley, Fitsgerald and Allende girl. I am also a Woodhouse, Marquez, Rothschild and Didion girl.

A book girl. And being a book girl means a lifetime of happiness, or learning, or armchair travelling to places I may never get to see except within their pages.

It means moments curled up in corners with new friends and old (hello Pippi Longstocking, Bridget Jones and Mr Darcy) which means, I told my husband, he gets more time to do the things he loves, like surfing and playing guitar.

And that my friends, is how you win the ‘discussion’.

In addition to being a News Corp journalist and newspaper weekly columnist, Frances Whiting is also the author of two novels – WALKING ON TRAMPOLINES (2013) and THE BEST KIND OF WONDERFUL (2019).