hemorrhaging bibliophilia.

I've worked at a bookstore for over 16 years, and now have a library of ... well, let's say moderately, over 2,000 books. The library consists of 12 bookcases of varying sizes, but as of now they all have even more books on top, a bit of horizontal cross shelving, and even a disturbing smidge of double shelving. My dedicated room is my childhood dream come true.

The shame of this hoard is that I've perhaps only read 10% or so. All the dating, writing, cigars, bowling, friends, videogames, movies, hanging out, clubbing, dining, and competitive miniature golf's gotten in the way. Plus there's books I don't actually own that I just read over lunches and breaks at work.

This leaves 1,800 or so books to read.

I've made a pact with myself to solve this. I owe the library 50 pages a day. Many days I'll read more, and happily, but then again many books are longer than your average published length of 300 pages, but let's work on the conservative assumption that my over-reading (hah! as if there ever could be something as ludicrous as "over-reading") averages the longer books down to 300 pages.

One-thousand eight-hundred books then contain 540,000 pages.

At fifty pages a night, it will take me 10,800 days to read all the remaining books I own.

That's nearly 30 years, so as of this writing I'll be a sweet 69 when I'm done.

I could strive for 100 pages a day, but that only halves my reading to 15 years. If I focus on books alone, reducing my intake of other media (and let's face it, books are the best medium in terms of duration, enrichment, engagement, expression and complexity in cultural vessels), a dubious dozen years.

But if I bought 2,000 books in 16 years, odds are I'll buy another 4,000 over the course of those 30 years, so there isn't a "done" to be had, really. Such is the reward of a life in books.

As a child I asked my mother what could I grow up to do so I could be around books. She said I should be a literary critic, but by now it's obvious there's a whole lot of things a pop culture audience requires I professionally review that would have been far more chore than pleasure (Nicholas Sparks? J.D. Robb? Danielle Steel? Fuck that drivel). That, and I don't consume fast -- I savour slowly.

The library has shown me things I'll never see during my travels, experience I've never been afforded in relationships, people of grand countenance, villainies of admirable horror, stars of distant note, abysses of time, perils beyond price, and the unspeakable impossibly wrought into the gift of the word.

So, I'll be in the library, if you need me. And you can sit in the extra leather chair if you'll keep quiet and let me read.

[You know that bit in the "Neverwhere" BBC mini where Angel Islington sings the chorus of "I'm in Heaven", does a turn, and spreads his arms in glowing rapture? Yes, it feels exactly like that. Display racks left to right: a U.S. first of Newman's Anno-Dracula, a Yale first of Barber's Vampires, Burial, and Death, and a vintage Nestor Redondo illustrated version of Stoker's Dracula.]

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Addenda from 12/28/2012:

As a follow up that the reading always pays off, here's the Book Worm badge I just won while eating hot mustard wings on the trivia network tonight:

[Thanks, Mr. Dickens.]

(And later) Yet more reading achievement trivia booty:

The "Say What?" badge, which chides "Sooooooomebody's been reading the dictionary again!"

The talking fox is pretty boss. Thinking he's probably a St Exupery reference.

While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him via LinkedIn or G+.