The writing life (8)
Of all the things I’ve written in 2½ months as a writer-reporter at the Monitor, the pieces that draw the most – and the most interesting – response – are the “At my age” columns on the Sunday Home & Family page.
The one I wrote Sunday about what one reader called “biblomania,” my wife’s and my addiction to buying books, drew this e-mail from an acquaintance who shall remain anonymous:
“. . . I didn't know there was any other couple who have gone quite as far in this respect as my husband and myself. Our house – and even its two attics – are totally filled with books.
“I think you said something implying that the situation at your place is worse because your interests and those of your wife don’t overlap much. It is my experience that the situation can be just as bad when reading interests do overlap.
“My husband and I met and got into the (same) field by going to school together. . . . We, therefore, have duplicates of many books that we studied together; however, we can’t ever bring ourselves to part with even one copy of each of these duplicate books; we’re afraid we might both want to read the same book at the same time someday!
“As you can tell, we’ve got an exceptionally bad case of the book addiction syndrome! Thanks for giving us a chance to laugh about it!”
me too.
My wife says I buy too many books and that we have far too many. Her cure is "go to the library." This never works. I need to have the book myself and in hard copy. Shelf life in paperbacks is not good at all. So I try to buy only hardbacks. She is tired of moving my books and threatens to have them towed away by a moving company. I love my books. They are like family to me. I need to own a home that has nothing but book shelves on each and every wall. Of course, you know who disagrees with that.
Whew
It is so nice to know that I'm not the only one with shelves full of books that haven't been read...yet. I keep telling myself that I'm not allowed to buy anymore until I finish the ones I have, but as you might have guessed, this never works.