I've chosen my books. There will be heartache when I realise certain things aren't with me, and I'm sure there'll be an Amazon wishlist, requests for suddenly necessary books to be sent over and a truckload of new purchases. But it's done.

I am reading Lionel Shriver's new novel on the plane. I am taking the first volume of Peter Porter's collected poems and the complete Zbigniew Herbert, and buying new poetry to read upon arrival. I'm taking my comfort-zone stack of Anne Carson's.

I find it hard to realise that I'm taking perhaps one percent of my collection, and that the rest are sitting in boxes under my parents' house, or on shelves inside. I'm sure I'll collect a few books when I'm home at the end of the year, but in the mean time, I feel like I'm grieving my collection.