Stop buying books

I'm not buying any new books until I've read everything in my library.

Buying books and reading books are two separate hobbies. I’m equally enthused about and dedicated to both, but, this being the nature of things, one hobby will always gallavant ahead of the other. For it is true that it takes seconds to purchase a book; it takes perhaps a lifetime to read it.

Someone somewhere (I forget who) said, or wrote, that buying a book is also buying the hope of finding the time to read it. Readers tend to have wild minds that can’t be stayed: if we could read many books ast once, we would.

In Walter Benjamin's celebrated esay on book collecting he quotes Anatole France, who waftily disclaims that he hasn’t read all the volumes in his possession because, “you wouldn’t use your best china everyday.” But I intend to dine sumptuously with my finest crockery from now till I finish.

Please follow me as I read every book I have bought but which presently resides unperused on my shelves.