I can’t stop reading!
It must be some sort of reaction to a year-long drought. From September to June, I’m usually too busy (or too tired) to do a great deal of recreational reading, though I do manage to polish off the odd book here and there.
But come July and August…and I become the Incredible Hulk of literature! My body unleashes all its repressed energy, and I start to ravenously consume books…power through them…mentally obliterating them one-by-one.
I’m sure the Black Death hit Europe with equal, unstoppable force. Okay, without the deathly, bursting pustules…but just work with me & my metaphor for a moment.
I’m currently reading my 9th BOOK! My 9th BOOK in the last TWO WEEKS! Novels, essay collections, graphic novels, historical treatises…I’ve dipped into each of these genres. Booker prize winners & nominees, up-and-coming young authors, geeky classics, even my requisite Doctor Who books…I’ve burned through a large and satisfying pile of well-written human expression.
It’s like an addiction. Scratch that: it’s the ULTIMATE addiction. Just when I think I’m spent…just when I’ve put another book on my completion pile…the FEELING comes over me. Like an electric pulse, teasing my brain…a little voice whispering to me: “Go get another book…go get another book.” Who needs a drug addiction when books attach themselves to your body with I.V.’s made of words.
Chapters — and a few local used book stores — are really enjoying my patronage at the moment. ;-)
I’m sure my brain will give out eventually — all this literary gorging is bound to make my eyes bleed & my body spasam sooner or later. But in the mean time, I’ll see if I can take this binge consumption to an even ten books. At the very least, I’ll have quite the backlog of blog reviews to type out…unless I decide to write up the reviews in chunks.
As dilemmas go…I can think of worse burdens.
