Suzanne Askham

Fiction notes: Every bookish person needs a tote

Some days are manic. There are so many demands on my time, it’s hard to focus on just one thing. So I write lists and action plans and those help. But what also helps is a book tote. A book tote, in the right circumstances, can be a pocket of calm within a hectic life. Open the tote and, aah, the pleasure of reading emerges.

This is currently my favourite tote, found recently at Waterstones in Bath. That day, I bought one book, and popped it inside to carry it home. And I’ve repeated the exercise several times since then.

The key point is this: in a busy life, recreational reading can seem like a waste of time. But it never is. Reading fiction in particular brings new ideas, fresh insights and a dose of escapism. If you’re bookishly inclined, reading is a necessary luxury that recharges you for the manic times. A tote of stories brings respite from the daily grind.

My tote is designed purely to carry books – just one or two or maybe three at a time. That moment of putting a new volume in the bag brings a breath of calm, a sigh of relief, and the prospect of a mini-holiday from other commitments.

It’s important not to to over-stuff my book tote. Yes, I have a giant TBR pile at home but that, while a wonderful thing, can bring pressures of its own: I should have read this, I should have read that. In contrast, the book tote only contains what I might read in a week or so. And therefore, I often do.

Currently my tote contains A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles and The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell. Both, curiously, feature sequestered lives, something I’m both drawn to and repelled by. The incarcerated characters in each novel cannot choose freedom. But moments of optional solitude – just me with a book, enjoying a mini-break from my crazy schedule – now they can be wonderful.

Do you have a book tote for selected, pared down reading? Or do you have another method of creating pockets of fiction reading in an often busy life?