I Have a Problem

I read too much. Or, rather, I buy books faster than I can read them. Actually, that's only part of the problem. I don't have enough space for all the books I've bought...plus, I'm still trying to read them. I don't really want an intervention, so I thought writing about it might help. Ergo, this blog. Seriously, if this is my only vice, people...

Another interesting tidbit about my reading habits (which I find fascinating in other people, too), is that I read at least four books at the same time. Not in one sitting, obvs, but alternating each time I sit down to read. I usually have one history, one non-fiction, one fiction, and one type of spiritual growth book going on at the same time. Sometimes more or less, depending on how massive the book is. Like, for instance, I'm 150 pages into Ian Kershaw's Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris. It's the first volume of two. It's so freaking huge and I have it in hardcover, which gives me a wicked hand cramp when reading in bed at night. So far, Hitler has just learned he has a knack for speaking to crowds and he's stumbled upon the German Worker's Party.

My fiction title at the current moment is The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid. It's not rocking my socks off, but it's a fairly smooth read thus far. Not sure what to pick up next. I tend to read more history and non-fiction than fiction, but I've also got a huge collection of classics which I keep meaning to dive into. Tolstoy keeps shouting at me from my bookshelf. But it's in Russian so I don't understand him entirely. I think he's saying he wants me to start reading Anna Karenina already. We'll see, Leo...keep your ushanka on your head.

So, yes, I have a problem. But, in the grand scheme of things I suppose it's a pleasant problem. So I'll keep recording here the extent of my malaise with each new book I buy and each new stack that spills onto the floor.