BREAKFAST WITH TOLSTOY

Breakfast is a routine enough event, isn't it? The kitchen wakes up to the sound of porridge being stirred, toast being burnt under my watchful eye, fish oil capsules bouncing as they hit the side plate and plummet onto the floor, the teapot steaming under my Mum's tea cosy.
John Humphrey's strident, but somehow comforting, tone emanates from the radio as I dart out the back door to stampede the squirrels off the bird feeder.
The wild card at the breakfast table is always the presence of human beings and the possibilities arising from conversation!
As I put a comforting layer of honey on my toast (on top of the layer that was already there), my wife tucked into her porridge. An item on freedom of expression in Putin's Russia came and went on Radio 4.
"I don't think I've ever read a Russian classic novel., I said. I think of them as magnificent of course but tragic and sombre and - well, heavy".
Having passed judgement on something I knew nothing about, satisfied, I rested my case and focused on the prunes and yoghurt once more. "Four or five", I pondered.
"It just depends what you read," came the reply from the other side of the table.
"Is there any of that nice Waitrose honey left?", she said.
While my wife continued seamlessly,I made myself useful and hunted it down. It was cowering behind the pepper grinder.
"What do you mean?" I said. Distracted by thoughts of blueberry jam, I'd let the genie out of the bottle.
"For instance, you'd love Pages from a Huntsman's Diary by Turgenev or The Cossacks by Tolstoy. Oh, and Years of Childhood by Aksakov is brilliant. Do you think this milk's off?"
While she spoke, she poured the Twinings and I stumbled around frantically for a biro and something to scribble on.
"Oh, yes - and don't forget Goncharov's Oblomov and", as she closed the dishwasher door, "any short stories by Pushkin. They're so beautiful. Do you fancy going to the gym later?
And whatever you do, you must read A Hero of Our Time by Lermontov."
"It's ok. I've got them all!
Right, I think I'll go and have a bath" - and off she went, happy as a sandboy (apparently they delivered sand, the precursor of sawdust, to pubs and theatres in the 18th century. Why that made them happy is anyone's guess!).
Reeling, I noted the last of the names down and collapsed, exhausted and amazed, not for the first time.
All that knowledge, all that love of the novel, of the 19th Century, here and abroad. I'd pressed a button and a stream of consciousness had flowed out, from the mother lode, lovingly and unpretentiously. About a minute's worth, no more.
For her, it was an effortless process of enthusiastically assembling a 'shopping list'.
For me, I saw her love of reading and what it's always meant to her - and given her. All that secret reading under the bedspread, late into the night as a little girl.
And it somehow colonised me over my muesli.
I was gobsmacked,- in awe really. I may not read any of them.
I feel like I have.