Flo did not have an air-conditioning unit as they were too expensive, but she did have a lot of books. Her bookcases were stuffed with them, and all shelf space available was taken. Seeing her books reassured her, made her feel calm. She’d read most of them, but there were a many waiting to be read, which gave her a sense of excitement, and conjured up one of her favourite Japanese words – tsundoku – a word that required a sentence in English: buying books and piling them up on a shelf without reading them. She
