On my Italian blog I have just posted a rather lugubrious post about the fact that, considering I was walking in Asti’s market square one week ago, and that Asti was a city in which a number of COVID-19 cases have been reported, I am currently counting the days, and feeling a shiver every time I cough or I sneeze.
Did I catch it?
Am I infected?
Will I die?

The virus has a 14-days incubation period, so I am currently halfway through, and counting.

But as I said in that post, we can only keep doing what we always did, and march on. After all, what else could we do?
Were I to start obsessing over the fact that I might be ill, would it change my chances of survival?
No.
All I can do is stay put, and avoid others for their own sake.
And count the days, feeling a stab of fear every time I cough.

So I went and bought me 24 books.
Because, you see, there is this big huge Humble Bundle celebrating 25 years of Tachyon Publishing, and they are offering a selection of their best titles.
Moorcock, Kiernam, Tidhar, Hurley, Walton, McKillip…
Of the 24 volumes, five I already had, and 12 of the others were on my to buy list. It was a no brainer.

And yes, I know, I keep complaining I have no time to read, because I have too much to do.
But who cares.
It is also a sign, I believe, of that strange mechanism that fuels our lives – because we all know we’ll be gone, one day or another, and yet we keep hoarding books and making plans like we have all the time of the world.
Which, in a way, we have – all the time that’s allowed to us.