THAT SHELF OF UNREAD BOOKS : A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

I’ve decided that reading books is not about reading books. No. It’s about reading books that come into the house as a specific category. As I write this in January, eleven books wandered into the house. I’ve read one of those.

   This doesn’t mean I’ve read one book this year. (Yes, yes, as I type, I’ve read one book in the first week of the year.) My decision stands: reading books is not about reading books. How many books did I read this year? Irrelevant. Match the number you’ve read against the number that came in.

   The specific category is this: how many books have I read that came into the house this year? That’s the only measure worth considering. Did I read everything I bought/was given?

   This leads to a number. Not the number of books I managed to read in a year, come December the 31^st. The number is a small figure, I hope. Did I read all the books that came in? Answer. The number I’m looking for is…small…

   Books that came in minus books that I read = ?

   Yes, the number could be zero. I somehow balance the books.

   Balancing the books is no good. Let us speculate, and suppose that 50 books come in over the year. (Even I take a fortnight’s rest from purchasing sprees.) Any positive number is a failure. Take 50 in, minus 49 read, stare sadly at the landscape, calculate, and that leaves a total of one unread book.

   The challenge isn’t to reach zero or to limit the size of a positive number. No. The job is to generate a negative number. Fifty books come in. I somehow manage to devour 60. Introducing this system must take account of unread books left over from last year. Winning, stemming the tide, comes about by generating negative numbers.

   This plan is simple. Keep generating negative numbers until I finally balance the books. Then there are no more unread tomes to tackle within the building. I’d turn my attention to unread tomes outside. No, I don’t mean in the garden.

*

Writing in January for February, I overlooked something. Now that this is February, I’m forced to consider all the quirks and quibbles. What did I overlook? A BIG something. Not the pile of unread books, though, good gravy, that is a big something, I’ll reluctantly admit.

   Gosh, look at that interesting thing over there.

   When keeping track of books I’d devoured in a year, I kept track of books I’d devoured in a year. And I kept notes on a weekly basis.

   This time around, changing the way I keep note, I’ve only just noticed that I haven’t kept note of anything. The vital statistic to look for is the number of books coming in.

   Well, it’s February and I don’t know how many books came into the house this year. Beyond the first week in January, I didn’t keep notes at all. For the mad scheme to work, there’s a vital statistic that I vitally ignored. Eleven books wandered into the house, as part of a sale. I was given a book. And then I lost track.

   There was a free duplicate book, and I was meant to give that away. I must give it away soon. Can’t really count that one. If a book comes in and I’ve read it and don’t keep it, there’s little point adding it to the tally. I didn’t expect that to come up. Damn it.

   This is more complex than I thought it would be. Books in and books finished inside the year. Why the hell would I ever consider books out? Books rarely go out. That is part of my shelf problem. A free duplicate book reared its pagey head and threw my count out. Or threw itself out of my count. Let’s go with that one. It’s easier to process.

   Now I must think over other anomalies, glitches, one-offs that multiply into their own categories, and whatever else I’ve messed up by accident and possibly on purpose.

   I look forward, and to the right, beyond the edge of the screen, to see a borrowed book on one shelf. How many borrowed books do I have here? I have one book that must go back, and I’m staring at it. Okay. So far, so good. Any other items I should consider that I am not considering?

   Damn it. All those pamphlets.

   In running a boardgame/roleplaying channel on the interwebs, I must, from time to time, buy in boardgames. These games come complete with rulebooks. (Except for that one time when the rulebook wasn’t enclosed and I was asked to send the entire game back for a replacement. Free postage, luckily, but it was SUCH a faff.)

   For the most part, game rulebooks are pamphlets. Occasionally, they are mighty tomes. Those need not concern us here. Okay, do I count those rulebooks when I am dealing with the books that come in this year?

   No, I don’t count those. But they do come in. And they take time to read. So I must read them. And that removes reading-time from reading chunky big books. Hell, it removes time from reading slim volumes as well.

*

Let us recap, and see where this path took us. Books came in. Part of the sale. I was given a book. Rulebooks sneaked in – we’re not counting those. Duplicate books don’t matter, provided I’ve read the originals. The borrowed book is a one-off.

   I hold a deep and terrible suspicion that there are categories lying undisturbed in the dust of ages, and those categories will ambush me as the year unfolds.

   Time to keep notes. I’m saying twelve books came in. One book is done, after the first month of the year. The tally, then, is eleven. This number must go. And I’ll read that borrowed book as well. What happens next? To dig deep into the negative numbers, I must…

   Stop buying books.

   Boardgame rulebooks don’t count. Roleplaying game books are hefty, and will count if I buy more. I expect to buy a few over the year. Hardly any. I should aid my cause by not borrowing books. Luckily, I am not borrowing books.

   What about books going out? Perhaps it is time to look through the shelves and uncover duplicate copies that could go to charity shops. This manoeuvre is likely to consume a great deal of time and much effort for a tiny adjustment to the shelves.

   And books I no longer want or need, that should just go? That isn’t a category. I have reference books entirely sidelined by the instant accessibility of the internet. Yet my reference shelf, directly to the right, remains intact. Those books represent part of the history of being a writer.

   Besides…if I clear shelves of books, I’d have to fill those shelves with books. And I am not meant to be buying books this year. Damn it, I have to add a new category to this mad scheme. It was all so much simpler when I just scratched another line on the piece of paper that marked the number of books read annually, week by week and month by month.

   Now I must chisel out another list on the stone tablets. Books I bought this year that I shouldn’t have purchased – knowing damn fine that there’s an embargo on throwing money at new volumes. That list must stay as close to the number zero as possible. And it has to be a monthly list.

   Monthly book gains. January. Eleven bought. (Given a book. And gained a duplicate book.) February. Zero. Twelve books in and one book read. That must change. January was scrappy, and rather busy. I started books. And I will finish those books. March is the month to look for, to see how this business shapes up.

   It will be the relentless march of books, in March. But the March march is in the other direction, slicing through tomes and racing through narratives whether factual or fictional. Of the books mentioned here, almost all are factual. Three are fictional.

   If you write in a particular area of fiction, read outwith it. Also, read outside fiction entirely. Bring other forces and influences to bear on your chosen subject. Read as many vampire stories as you feel you need to, when you want to write vampire stories of your own…

   But read beyond vampire stories. And read beyond made-up stories. Delve into biographies and technical subjects and whatever you can lay your hands to. Read…more books than you buy this year. How will you know? Keep notes, and read over those.

   There are books out there, unbought, that I refuse to buy until a particular series is over and done with…for fear that the author won’t live long enough to finish the work in question. So, yes, there’s a list of books to buy. But I won’t be buying them any old time soon. That takes us into another topic entirely. Stories writers must finish scribbling, even as they turn to write other stories in the meantime.

   That is an endless saga, older than the hills, and too large a thing to contemplate here.