booked

An unwritten but much talked about resolution for this year was to stop buying books. No, it wasn't an attempt to reach out to my Neanderthal roots. Quite the contrary.

You see, I have a problem. My name is Lori-Anne and I am a book-a-holic. I love buying books. So much so, in fact, that in recent years I've bought and bought and bought without ever finding the time to read my purchases.

This year, I decided to sit down and actually start to read what I have accumulated - starting with Ulysses, which I blogged about more than a year ago (still haven't cracked the spine on that one) and then maybe venturing into A Star Called Henry (Roddy Doyle), The Skystone (Jack Whyte) and the old Canadian classic, Who Has Seen the Wind (W.O Mitchell).

Mark me 0/4. I have read, though - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Mark Haddon), The Song Beneath the Ice (Joe Fiorito - although does it count if it's been over a year and I still haven't finished it?) Why I Hate Canadians (Will Ferguson) and, oh, The Bible (which I started with Kyle, in April. We're now into Leviticus).

There are stacks of books, all over my house. Stacks and shelves of unread books. It's shameful, really. Yesterday I broke my resolution and ventured into a second hand bookstore on Pandosy - one of Kelowna's only decent ones (thus this blog entry). I heard that Memoirs of a Geisha was coming soon to a theatre near me and decided I really had to read the real thing before seeing someone else's hacked-up interpretation of it. I'm about to start Chapter 4, so at least it hasn't gone straight to a shelf.

There's something about bookstores, though, that makes me desire more books. Maybe it's the tall towers - sometimes arranged maze-like, full of knowledge (or at least ideas) and adventure. Each package of bound-together pages is a door into another life or a world that the reader can inhabit. Sometimes it's almost overwhelming.

I've tried, in my purchasing habits, to stick to a theme - classics, Can Lit, music, art - and then I come across a crazy gem such as A Last Diary, by W.N.P. Barbellion (don't know who he is but think of the possibilities - "March 21st, 1918. - Misery is protean in its shapes, for all are indescribable. I am tongue-tied. Folk come and see me and conclude it's not so bad after all - just as civilians tour the front and suppose they have seen war on account of a soldier with a broken head or an arm in a sling. Others are getting used to me, though I am not getting used to myself," he begins. So I buy it, even though it doesn't fit into any theme).

I still haven't read beyond that, of course.

If I had more time, I'd read all the time. I know people who read on the train or the bus, on their breaks or after work. I'm not going to break down my schedule for you, but it seems there's always something else to fill that spot. So I buy, rationalizing in some crazy way that to own is as good as to read, and if my shelves are well stocked and my room nicely furnished with interesting books, I will be a better person for it.

I'm still not convinced that's altogether far-fetched - a room full of literature and music and art is still balancing, even if it isn't dwelt upon.

Why do you think book stores are so cool?

Someday I'd like to open my own secondhand book shop (with an adjoining tea room), and just be surrounded by great books - novels, diaries, history books, art anthologies, travel journals, the list goes on. And then, oh yes, I might even have a chance to sit down and read, between customers.

Until then, I might just keep on buying, pointlessly. At least until I find a more productive hobby.