My bedside table is stacked high with abandoned books, cast aside after just a few chapters. Life is so busy, and reading time is so precious, that unless I’m gripped by a book, I quickly give up. My younger self would be appalled at such behaviour. I can only shrug at her. She’ll learn.

In a smaller pile are those that have survived the cull. I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes (Corgi) is a spy thriller which I recently finished in record time. It’s a smart, vaguely believable story of one man’s race to save America from a biological terrorist attack.

There, too, is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time: Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens (Corsair). It’s a murder mystery, intertwined with a love story. This book got me in trouble at home, because I kept sneaking away to read it during ‘family time’.

I’m working my way through Robert A Caro’s awesome biography of Lyndon Johnson (Knopf), who I suspect knows Mr Johnson better than he ever knew himself. Meanwhile, Amazon has recommended that I read Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (Tinder Press), so that’s sitting in the pile, ready to go.

There’s one book on my list, but not physically on the bedside table. It’s Ulysses, by James Joyce: I’ve just downloaded the audio version. My brother, a professor of English, assures me it’s very accessible this way. We’ll see.