This week I went to the London Book Fair. I knew that it wasn’t the most advantageous place for a blogger, but with very few big book events going on over here in the UK (I’m looking with envy of all you lucky Americans going to the Book Expo) I took a chance.

Unfortunately the first sign that it wouldn’t be too good was my badge coming through. The application form said that what you put down as your job and company would be on your badge, so naturally I put down “blogger” and the name of this site. I knew that even if blogger support isn’t universal in publishing, a lot of publishers do like us and thus it made sense. So discover my disappointment when my badge arrived, relegating me to the somewhat pointless position of “visitor” – I say pointless because everyone glances at everyone else’s badges as they walk past, looking for an interesting networking opportunity.

Thankfully, in a way, the rest of the disappointment was mostly my own fault. No, the fair isn’t the best place for bloggers, it’s mostly for trade. But I expect that if I’d been a little more forthright I may have been able to have a conversation or two about upcoming releases. And there are seminars that I believe would be useful and also a good place to meet people in the industry.

Reading about what the fair is for is nothing compared to actually being there, and as someone who knew they were taking a chance I did indeed feel out of place and spoke very little. So maybe it wasn’t worth it this year – however having been once I now know how I should approach the next one.

When I finished Villette, I thought that maybe my venture in reading two books at a time was at a close. It seemed realistic to me that, having finished the long and often dull classic, I could go back to giving my attention to a solo object of my bookish desire. And it worked, for a short while. I read Kimberly Derting’s Desires Of The Dead, my focus not blurred by the affections of another novel.

But I realised after finishing Derting’s book that the date I had agreed to post a review of another book loomed near, and thus that I did not have the power of choice over what my next read should be. I begun the book, but during breaks my hands were itching to caress the pages of another.

The thing is, I don’t think that, in practice, it would work, and I say this because of a revelation that came to me in a way not unlike the regular situation of turning on a light switch. I believe I understand the situation that must exist if a second book is to join me and my first in a tryst.

They must each be different, more so than in personality. A different personality is good, but it is not the catalyst.

One of them must be an ebook.

Part of me screams “for shame!”, considering the fact that just a few months ago I was unrelenting in the idea that Call Me Kate should be my one and only ebook until at least paperbacks were hard to come by – but the rest of me recognises that the big difference in format means that somehow, the section of my brain that might get confused and twist the threads of different plots together, won’t have a problem as long as only one book is in print.

I think my unwillingness to accept that ebooks are on a par with print books is the key, and I can exploit it.

I may be in a threesome tonight, but I don’t think anyone will question my morality.

I’m currently reading one of my all-time favourite books, an early 2000’s historic fantasy, Across The Nightingale Floor. I’m finding it just as appealing as I did the first time, which must have been around the time it was published.

Something that I have noticed is that the YA produced today generally isn’t in the same league as the older books. And by older books I actually mean any books that came out before the internet became such a big thing, before Facebook and the like, when websites were static and had guest books. There’s just this other-worldliness to older books, no matter whether or not the book is set in our world or not. A lot of this is undoubtedly because our mindset has changed.

Of course that lead me to something else, the bigger picture. Despite the fact that I was a child before the internet came along and thus was more “prone” to finding entertainment in other places anyway, I can’t help but look back and know that I was happier then. The internet isn’t a bad thing but it’s definitely taken a lot of my time, although I do realise that when you grow up there are less entertainment options anyway because a plethora of board games, tea sets, dolls, and Polly Pocket, no longer cut it.

There is definitely something to be said for the internet taking over our lives. Starting this week, February is going to be a busy month for me, and I will fully embrace it.

Ever since my childhood, when I was known to have several on the go at once, I have since stuck to only one at a time and never dallied with a second. I knew that in this way I could suitably satisfy each and give all of them my attention, separately.

But I did know that one day I might have to revert to my past self. Sometimes one would be very dull and long-winded and, unfortunately, I had a nasty habit of sticking with them the longest. The ones I truly loved never lasted more than a few days.

Villette is long-winded and drags on and on; when Entangled was released I knew that I had to put a stop to my faithfulness. I wanted to read Entangled, right then.

I will not read more than two books at a time and will, for now, concentrate on one at at time, for example I am reading Villette in between starting other books. I know that this practice is the best way to ensure I make the most of my reading time and don’t waste days reading nothing because my self-imposed option is so boring.

Thus I am no longer monogamous.

Although I did not much like Alison Weir’s The Princes In The Tower, for her extreme bias without evidence (though I agreed with her conclusion), the book taught me a thing or two. Today I am concentrating on just the one.

When I was growing up I had a firm belief in the goodness of Henry VII and the badness of Richard III, it was something my childhood readings and a few classes had taught me and I believed it without question. I was also constantly presented by drawings of a calm, gentle, mature-looking Henry and a slightly crazed-looking Richard.

This is not to say that I have since changed my overall opinion, because I haven’t. I still agree with my 8-year-old self that Richard didn’t deserve his crown and that he was responsible, if not directly, for the death of Edward V. I am, in that way, a staunch Lancasterian, even if I think that the house of York in general deserved the line through historical right.

But what I discovered showed me just how careful one should be when evaluating the importance of evidence. I had read that Henry VII had taken the crown from a horrible man who had killed two children. I saw the kind face of Henry in pictures. The pictures backed the texts up, this man was good. Now, as an adult, I have noticed the following: The image of Henry that I have included in this post is the one most often reproduced and replicated. It was painted in the 1500’s, so the artist would have been entrusted to create a good image of the king. The image I’ve included of Richard was also painted in the 1500’s, likely during Henry’s reign; it’s not surprising then that this older king doesn’t look particularly pleasant.

What my books failed to impart was the fact that while Richard had been giving his all in battle and wielding his sword, his rival had sat upon his horse watching the war from a safe position. You could say that Richard was reckless and that Henry was only doing what was normal at that period in time for a leader in war, but what it did for me was propel Richard into place as the courageous, and Henry as the selfish man unwilling to work at literal ground level but happy for others to die for him and his house.

Adding this information to the visual and other textual evidence can I see Richard in a new light? As one who was certainly brave – if wrong, and ruthlessly selfish – to defend the title he had stolen. In effect, he got what was due, he’d stolen the throne first and now it was going to be stolen from him in return. Even if this last fight was deserved he kept going when he could have sat back.

Henry VII on the other hand, just looked on, as he does in all the pictures undoubtedly designed to put the country at ease. Which, actually, makes me wonder. The opposing opinion to mine is that Richard didn’t kill the princes, and if you think about it, isn’t there every chance that it was done by someone in aid of Henry?