I love rooting around old secondhand bookshops, and the other day I came across this old Kipling book of poems for £2.50, Songs From Books. It intrigued me because of the swastika on the cover, and also because the quality of paper and printing was so much better than today's issues. Of course Kipling used the swastika because it was an ancient Indian sign of good luck and peace and when the Nazis started to use the symbol he stopped using it. But I still felt a bit self-consciousÂ*when I bought it, and it reminded me of Winston Smith furtively buying an old diary in '1984'. Anyway although I don't usually like poetry much, I enjoyed reading it and I recommend it.
