I won't be doing my annual round-up because I just haven't been as culturally connected this year; the joys of being too busy with the day job. And I'm not sure if I even did one last year. My previous post did, however, name a few 2012 faves. Today I spent a few hours sorting through hundreds of books - paperbacks mainly - ready to be recycled. For years I've been unable to part with any books unless they were great and I wanted to pass on the odd one of them to friends and family. But today I figured, just keep some of the ones I've not yet read and a good few shelves of those I really want to keep. And the result so far is seven garden-sacks worth of books waiting to leave me. And I've still to go through another six or seven shelves worth. Having to cull books forced me to focus on the space that they take up. No bad thing, to have books around. But it seems something of a vanity to have hundreds of them, getting dusty, and never read or even referred to. …