Views of the world

I love reading. I wouldn't say that I read a lot, because I'm a rather slow reader - I get through an average of about a novel a month. The context has to be just right, I hate being disturbed, and as a lover of language, I rarely skim or skip. As such, I'm careful about the books I choose. I hate wasting precious reading time on rubbish books. I particularly love writing that stirs the grey cells and makes you think about the world differently in some way.

Yesterday I read a short story by Kate Atkinson from a collection in aid of Oxfam - Ox Tales: Earth. It's called Lucky We Live Now and is about a future world in which everyday materials start mutating back into their original form. So, for example, knitted jumpers turned back into sheep and silk into moths. It's a great concept and is beautifully written, but the thing that struck me most was a few lines which made me laugh out loud. I thought I'd share them here:

A kangaroo and a deer lurking in the hall cupboard proved to be an Armani jacket and a Jil Sanders coat bought in a Harvey Nichols' sale.
"You had a jacket made from kangaroo skin?" her mother said. "How extraordinary. Did it have pockets?"