So. This always happens to me if I'm staying at a house (or hotel) that has very few books. I bring a book. I finish it much earlier than I expect to. I go out and spend money on a new book. It's not bad, exactly. I'm not even sure it's worse than staying at a house that has lots of good books, where I always seem to leave with a book half-read, and then have to remember the name and author either for next time or for my local library. Ah, well.
I was lucky, this time, to have some brief time to spend at Oblong Books in Millerton, NY, which (and this is an unpaid and unrequested endorsement—Your Humble Blogger doesn't know the proprietors and no-one YHB knows is likely to benefit in any way from this plug) is a wonderful shop and was able to provide me with the necessary. Which in this case was The Pinhoe Egg. The thing about Diana Wynne Jones is that I can pick up one of her books with a very high level of confidence that I'll be amused. A fairly low level of confidence that I'll be knocked out; she's knocked me out once or twice, but mostly it's just amusement. Which is enough, particularly if I'm paying money, and I got nothin' to read.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.