WE once had a psychic visit our house (a long story:
nothing to do with me). She sat down in the living-room and accepted a cup of coffee. The first words she said were: "I'm seeing a room - a small room, all the walls filled with books up to the ceiling."
I remember thinking that she was pretty good at her calling - either that, or she'd had a sly look around the back of the house before ringing the front-door bell.
The truth was that, just yards from where she sat, was a small room crammed with books. Shelves that sagged under books. Squadrons of fusty books on the floor.
In the years since, books have steadily begun to colonise the house. They've started to appear in the kitchen. They clutter the hallway, they've taken over the bedrooms. There are books in drunken array on the landing at the top of the stairs.
My name is Russell, and I'm a bookaholic.
I find it impossible to leave a bookshop without buying at least one new book. Even as I hand over my debit card, I know that I'll probably only ever read the opening chapter before adding it to a pile of similarly under-appreciated volumes.
This summer I spent several days at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. The good news was that there were some brilliant authors on show. The bad news was that the festival had a bookshop. A lethally good one, at that.
Owing to some deep-seated instinct, I felt compelled to buy books by every one of the authors I saw. Among them was the Japanese novelist, Haruki Murakami. I didn't just buy his latest book: I bought three of his other books as well.
I spotted all four of them the other night. They were still in their original EIBF bookshop bag, their spines uncracked, their pages unread. They'll still be there in a year's time.
From time to time I've tried weeding through my book collection, discarding the ones I didn't even know I had - a 1985 China Handbook, that sort of thing - intending to donate them, once and for all, to charity shops.
And then, of course, in the moments before the collection van arrives, I rummage through the books and retrieve the ones that I just might read.
If anyone can help me curb this book obsession, I'd be seriously grateful.
In the meantime, I bought, last Thursday, Naomi Klein's daring new book on climate change. I'll tell you what: that first chapter is brilliant.
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