It’s rare that a week goes by without a new book finding its way onto my overcrowded shelves. This is partly an occupational hazard, as someone who reads and reviews books professionally; they often come to me unbidden, mailed by publicists and publishers. But I’ll admit that it’s also a personal vice. Plucking a book from a little free library or buying one (or two) at my neighbourhood bookstore is a reliable pick-me-up, and like everyone else enduring the present, I am in perpetual need of a little treat to get through the week. Books have always occupied a special status among my possessions, an exemption from the guilt of consumption that strikes when I purchase a lipstick but never a paperback. Buying books feels wholesome, even virtuous. I like to tell myself that I’m doing my part to keep the publishing industry alive, as if my steady acquisitions are chest compressions for an ailing patient.
Usually, I read these new books, but not always. My interest is usurped by library books, with their urgent loan periods, or forthcoming releases I’m reviewing for work, or a TV series that I’m binging instead of reading anything at all. Have you seen Deadloch? It’s fantastic. By the season finale, the book I meant to read has been supplanted on my nightstand by another recent addition. The pile beside my bed never shrinks; at the bottom of the stack are books I’ve been planning to crack open for months. My shelves remain full of lingering aspirations.
