Mapping out a head full of facts

I HAVE never read a novel. Not one. I have tried, but as soon as I get to the bottom of the first page I get an odd feeling in my stomach.

ON the Saturday you will be reading this I will have been up at dawn to collect The Weekend Australian from my letterbox. I will have carefully removed the Weekend Property section and binned it before bringing the rest of the paper into the house.

And do you know why this subterfuge is necessary? It's because I am going to tell you a story about my - hushed tone - wife.

Some time ago I wrote a column that asked why women feel the need to join a book club when they reach a certain age. When I got home on the day of publication my wife had the paper open and, pointing to the column, said "you went very close to the bone with that one". So as you can see I am already on notice. Although in my defence today's piece isn't so much about my wife as a story that includes, and in fact some might say celebrates, my wife. (Do you think this is enough to get me off the hook?)

About four years ago when my son was in Britain on a gap year I bought a London street directory so I might better understand the area in which he was living.

On the following Saturday after lunch my wife and I began reading: she opened her book-club novel; I opened my newly acquired street directory.

After some time I became aware of what can only be described as an atmospheric discordance. You will appreciate that after 32 years of marriage husbands don't have to ask; they just know when something is up.

Tiny sub-atomic particles of displeasure radiate from the female brain to the male brain and men, being the sensitive creatures we are, pick up on it. Eventually.

"Whatever is the matter?" I inquired. Pleasantly. Innocently. Naively. Apparently I had been reading my street directory for an hour. How can anyone read a street directory for an hour? No one can sit and look at a street directory for that length of time. It's not normal. In fact it's downright weird.

Indeed I was "freaking her out" with my blatant, wilful and sustained street-directory reading. "But I like street directories," was the most reasonable tenor of my reply. "I like to look at the urban form." (Although I have to admit when these words came out of my mouth I too thought they sounded strange.)

I'm sorry, but I am a fact-loving person. I can't help it. I've always been this way. I like maps, encyclopedias, history books; I adore books of lists. I also like the History and Discovery television channels. I have never read a novel. Not one. I have tried, but as soon as I get to the bottom of the first page I get an odd feeling in my stomach.

Why am I investing what little spare time I have reading something that someone has made up? It never happened. Oliver Twist did not exist. And neither did Mr Darcy. Mr Darcy is a figment of Jane Austen's fertile and undoubtedly frustrated - yes, you heard me, frustrated - imagination.

Now I am a fair and reasonable person. I don't mind if novel-reading people like to get together and engage in discussions about fiction, but just don't expect me to participate. So why is it that fact-loving people are pilloried for our, shall we say, factual orientation?

I don't insist readers of novels look at and discuss the town planning merits of London's East End. So why do novel readers need to spread the gospel of their fiction-loving beliefs? I figure the brain has only so much memory capacity so why would I fill it with stuff that's not absolutely needed.

Apparently the brain is divided into two sides: one side is creative whereas the other side is fact driven. I clearly have a highly developed brain on one side but absolutely nothing on the other. Which explains why in the photo on the cover of Weekend Property my head always tilts to the side: it's because the other side is completely empty.

KPMG Partner Bernard Salt is the author of The Big Tilt.

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