Enthusiasts are invariably perceived to be an odd bunch, outliers who tend to congregate among the safety of one another. There they stand on station platforms and near airport runways, in cagoules, jotting down numbers of trains and watching jets take off. Those who contain their obsessions indoors might treasure stamps or mount butterflies on pins. It passes the time.
The writer Nicholas Royle collects books. When he’s not reading them, he’s writing them (he’s the author of seven novels, two novellas and four short story collections), or editing and publishing them (his imprint Nightjar produces “limited edition single short-story chapbooks”).
