I received these latest chapters on Friday for my sneak preview of Corduroy Mansions.

In this tranche, we travel across town with Caroline, who discovers that her would be lover James bears all the hallmarks of OCD – so kissing is off the cards.

While they begin a journey into a the West End to pick up a specialist book, just a few feet away begins the quarterly meeting of the Ragg Porter Literary agency begins. We meet Barbara Ragg, nice but dim and the vile, spiteful couple Rupert and Gloria Porter.

Where is it heading?
What of the world of wine and MI6? ….I’ll just have to wait until next week. With 80 chapters in the book, I feel the pieces of the jigsaw are still being spread out, so we’re well before the stage of being able to compile the puzzle.

Pre dinner drinks last night and I was having a conversation with one of my dearest and most entertaining friends, over delicious Lapsang Souchong Martinis (how very now) at High Road House, about how the big fear of the information superhighway, commonly known as the internet, would lead to the atomisation of our culture. As far as I can tell, rather like the Millennium Bug, it’s all been a load of hype and malarkey. I suppose I could have sounded high minded like some kind of soothsaying 2.0 guru, but this was friendly two way chatter littered with gossip which is increasingly digital as we bring up things we have seen on facebook.

It’s not just in my mind, I’m living, breathing, blogging proof of this and I’m definitely not alone. I won’t bore you with statistics and facts…you can find them all on google. But seriously, we are not polarised, jeopardised or marginalised; we are more gathered together than ever before. I’m in touch with loads of people through the internet; and I’ve met new people too, be it through blogging, social networks like Ning or Linkedin – it’s convenience culture and it rocks. I’ve also gone out on a limb to go to meetups, tweetups and socials – and while geekiness abounds, I’ve met some great people who have become good friends.

What’s more, over the last few months, I’ve begun to find that living a modern life – which these days can only be more green – is all about going back to the basic stuff that I grew up with. So welcome back the daily newspaper, home delivered food (yes, now it’s not sacks of potatoes but Abel & Cole replete with recyclable boxes, locally sourced food etc etc), and old fashioned milk bottles from the Milkman (just rinse and give back, no need to fill up the bin with rubbish etc etc) – all of which I have sourced via the internet.

I’m all for contemporary living and we are experiencing U-turn and heading towards retro consumption (well I hope we are). So it really comes as no surprise that The Daily Telegraph is picking up on the Dickensian serialised novel – that first came about in the 1830s. And now that I’ve dumped the paper newspaper to save trees, I conveniently find this online, and with great aplomb I might add.

I’ve been invited to join The Telegraph Book Club and get a sneak peek at the first five chapters of the new Corduroy Mansions novel by Alexander McCall Smith. There’s a lovely article here that pays homage to this reinvented tradition. But I have to say, while I was intrigued about this post modern novelty (pardon the pun) I would not have put pen to paper fingertips on keyboards, unless the content was any good.

I love reading – everything and anything I can get my eyes on – and this book has 80 chapters – quite a commitment to keep to.

Well, that was until I span through the first five chapters today.

Being the urban girl in Zone 3, I find where I live a bit dull and a challenge. So as Chapter One kicked off, it felt a bit familiar and then it clicked. This book tickles me because I’m imagining Corduroy Mansions, as Arlington Park Mansions, overlooking the green in Chiswick, where E M Forster once lived. This area is full of wine bars, boutique cellars, bon vivants, over 200 restaurants, ingenues, Chelsea tractors and middle class hordes, plus the odd bohemian and of course me and Miniminx…

What I mean to say is that this is a middle class ghetto, where nothing really happens until you scratch the surface and intrigue grabs you – not by the throat but more like the aroma of a great burgundy…and of course, our main character William French, is Wine merchant living in Corduroy Mansions, and lover of wines of the Bordeaux region (I’m obviously more a fan of Burgogne but no expert I might add).

The story has a great set up and the first five chapters introduce some of the characters which will dominate the story, but not all of them. I’m looking forward to the next instalment/s as there’s a great yarn unwinding.

The sad thing is though, that I can’t read the whole thing at once.
And I found it a bit odd reading from a PDF in a larger than usual font from the printed page.
And I’m really keen to get hold of a Sony Reader or Kindle.
And I’m addicted to first edition hardback novels.
And I wonder if this is the new way, in the old fashioned way, that I’m going to start reading books…