Ben Crowder

Avalanches. No, really, I check out way too many books. The other day I had sixty checked out (between two libraries). Now, sixty’s an admirable number, but as many of you are probably asking yourselves, no, I don’t read them all. In fact, come to think of it, I don’t read most of them.

You see, I’m compulsive checker-outer. (Whether this applies to girls as well, I can neither confirm nor deny.) My weekday is not fulfilled unless I’ve roamed the stacks and found some new treasure to add to my to-read list. My desks and shelves at home and my desk at work are always overflowing with new books, and the piles just keep growing. There’s some soothing kind of therapy in checking out books — not to mention that it’s cheaper than buying them in the bookstore.

Anyway, I read a lot of parts of these books, but don’t finish as many as I’d like. I get distracted by shiny new ones. This is a bad habit. Granted, many times the new ones are in fact more interesting than the old ones, and I don’t feel bad about that, but I’ve got dozens of riveting books sitting here next to me and there’s only one that I’m over halfway through. Cry with me. :P

Lesson learned? If at all possible, go for sequential instead of simultaneous reading. And if you can’t…well, at least you can blog about it. ;)