My life is filled with abandoned reading. I look across the room right now, and I see two very tall bookcases filled with volumes, some shelves have smaller titles in front and back rows. A single one of those rows probably holds somewhere around 25 to 35 books. 14 shelves total, and with doubling of some shelves, it means 25 "shelves," and that means there are anywhere between 625 and 875 books on those shelves. That's probably a conservative estimate, and there are a few stacks of books in my closet, and some stray stacks elsewhere in the house. So, 1000 books, probably. It boggles the mind.
Some of these books are foundlings. Some are new purchases. Some have traveled with me from Missouri, and have been with me for decades. There are remainders, galleys, book club purchases, Borders, B&N, The Strand, Labyrinth Books/Book Culture, Shakespeare and Company, purchases from stands in Grand Central, Penn Station, and various airports, and from my years at the Drama Book Shop.
It would be great if I could look at this vast collection of titles, and proudly state that I have read all of that material, or even most of it, but to be honest, I don't think that I have read completely even half of these books. Some, of course, are reference books that are more for specific research questions rather than wholesale consumption, but that isn't a huge number of the unread, or unfinished. Even excepting out poetry and short story collections that are acceptable for less than complete perusal, there is a staggering amount of unused paper on my shelves. I look over the uncracked spines, and ask myself why, and I have come to this conclusion.
I have a bit of a wandering eye.
(to be continued)
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