I've never been a great book reader. I look up at my book shelves and I see forests of unread literature and unwanted christmas presents. I wish I was, because I feel like I'm missing out on a great pleasure, just like I look at people who don't enjoy food as being slightly mentally ill. In fact, fittingly, if I do go looking for a book I'm more likely to return with a cook book of ambitiously bullish recipes that in reality far outweigh my culinary ability (see any of the Moro books for a prime example).

So considering the lack of entertainment recipes will give me over an internet-free 10 days in southern France and my nosey penchant for details of other people's lives, I decided biographies are the 'go to' book for me. Imagine my disappointment this morning, when I was searching for - and failed to find - Bill Clinton or Alastair Campbell's bios because the whole shelf was taken up by David Cassidy's and John Barrowman's life stories. Now really, they have very little to tell in the way of hard hitting experience or interest.

Thank god for Amazon.