Books are one of my main pleasures, and I would have expected that in these most peculiar of times that my book habit would have magnified, but weirdly it hasn’t. I think as much as anything it is the sheer abnormality of the times we are in has meant that I haven’t been able to concentrate and settle into anything. I have started and stopped a number of books over the last month (running the gamut from John Le Carr é to Gore Vidal), not because they weren’t good or engaging or interesting, but because I just wasn’t in the mood for them. The trouble is, I didn’t know what I was in the mood for, which meant going back to my bookshelves and starting again. In the end I went with the maxim that if in doubt, go back to a book that you know by heart and just float along in its tide. So I did. The book in question was The Year of the King by Anthony Sher, his recounting of his year preparing to play Richard III at Stratford for the RSC in the mid 80’s and how his famous spider interpre