BOOK CRAVING

English boy studying for his school exams got into the habit of nibbling bits of paper while revising. He became so engrossed in this habit that he began to consume whole pages and before long whole books. His habit turned to obsession and, as an English Literature student, he started choosing which books to eat. He found that the pages of Shakespearean plays were much tastier than Thomas Hardy novels and ate his way through all his works from "Hamlet" to "Cymbeline". However, when he discovered that the older the edition the better the taste, he soon landed himself in trouble. One day, the police were called into a rare books shop when the owner discovered the hapless boy nibbling on a first edition copy of "Macbeth". The boy is now in a psychiatric institution where they are trying to wean him off Shakespeare and on to modern poetry, such as Philip Larkin, in a vain hope that he will soon tire of the habit.

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