I WALK PAST THESE BOOKS EVERY SINGLE DAY: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

On the way out of this office, I go by a bookcase every single day. I don’t know how many books are on there. And I don’t know how many I have read. At a wild guess, I’d say I also don’t know how many are unread.
   The bookcase hasn’t been there long. But there it is, and it is practically full. It contains a mix of books moved from elsewhere and books bought in recently. And now, as I blog, I am going to take a break and count the number of books I walk by.
   By the magic of typing, I have returned. There are 198 books, with one I know is misplaced for now. If it isn’t in this room, it is on this floor. I have space on one shelf for more volumes. How many more, only the floorboards can tell. If there’s a crack and a yell, you’ll know I’ve moved my collection downstairs in a hurry.
   How many of the 198 books have I read? Not all. I can’t read them all. After reading The Devil’s Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce, I resolved never to fully read a reference book again – not even a joke of a reference book like his. I also resolved never to read Ambrose Bierce again, and the world is a better place for that.
   You don’t read reference books. They are for skimming. Diving into. Jumping out of. But they are not cover-to-cover experiences. I shall return, by the magic of typing, to eliminate the reference works there.
   I spy three reference books. That leaves 195 books on the shelves. Of those, how many are duplicates? Oh, duplicates don’t infest my stacks. Sometimes, inheriting a library, I gain a duplicate. By typing arcane and most sorcerous, I shall reappear…
   Ten books have duplicates. Some of these are different editions with slightly varied collections of short stories. If I wanted all the stories, I had to pick up two cheap editions when no overall compilation existed, for example.
   All duplicates were cheap. And I’ve read all the material there. So we’re down to 185 books that landed in that part of the room. Now to the question. How many of those 185 books have I read? I know this one is tricky.
   There are two books in a loose series. I know for a fact I’ve read one of them. Which one, I can’t recall. I suspect I’ll have to read both to be certain. And now, a fiddly counting process that should be straightforward. It never is.
   I’ve read 140 of them. And I’d like to read a whole bunch of those again. We reached the point of the exercise. Every single day, I walk by 45 books I haven’t read. And I leave them there, unread, as I tackle other things.
   Maybe if I blog about that, I’ll stop and pick up a book to read. It’s an idea. Clear the reading list by bookcase. There are nine bookcases here. Some are used for other storage purposes and only have a few books on them.
   I could polish off a whole case very quickly, highly selectively, if I chose to. But I don’t choose to. Now I want to tackle the books I ignore every single day. They run the whole range. Fictional. Factual. In a series. Stand-alone.
   Chunky volumes. Weighty biographies. Historical pieces. Slim movie books. Frivolous works. Fairy stories. A book on cocktails. From the Weimar Republic to the underbelly of Los Angeles, and all points in-between. There they stand. Waiting for the pages to turn.
   I find there’s nothing so heavy in life as a pile of books you are moving cautiously from one place to another. Consolidated stacks weigh plenty, and have slippery covers. Steady as you go. I’m staring at omnibus editions of crime writers and also of comic books.
   The rule of the comic book omnibus is simple. Thou shalt place thine heaviest of books upon the bottom shelf, or suffer indeed. Better that the heaviest works break my ankle. That’s a grand alternative to having them snap my neck from on high.
   What do they all weigh? I’d rather not find out. If a bookcase fails, the spillage won’t affect me directly. Unless I am passing by at the time. In that event, I suspect it’ll be the act of passing by that triggers the avalanche.
   How to tackle the unread books? From the top to the bottom? Left to right? Certainly not alphabetically. Writers store books where they fit in. Not in wasteful alphabetical order. That serves no one. Oh, the crowd can rail against my view…
   But my fucking library is not here to serve the fucking crowd. It’s here to squeeze into the barely-available space.
   A few books are linked thematically. Tackle those together. Read what I want to. Most likely, the best approach. Maybe keep an eye on the number of unread books per shelf. Is there a shelf with one unread book on it?
   Everything on the top of the bookcase? I’ve read those tomes. Yes, they are wedged between bookends. Then we journey to the shelf below. One unread book, there, it’s true. And a recent acquisition, stashed where it will just barely fit and no more…
   That’s to keep it with the others in the series. And then, shelf by shelf, there are more unread books per section. No, I don’t think there’s a pattern to this. (Other than light paperbacks at the top and bullet-stoppers at the bottom.) A method? Just pick a book up and start reading.
   Question. By the time I tackle these books, how many more books will I have brought into the house? I’m not sure. There are books on pre-order. They’ll turn up when they turn up. Doesn’t mean they’ll fit on that bookcase. I still have some space elsewhere.
   Books on the way. I’ll try them for size, naturally. If they fit on this particular bookcase, there’s no way to dodge. Oh, all the books there are read…no more will squeeze in. Well. I guess we’ll just have to go with that, then, won’t we?
   We won’t. Books that arrive are unread, and still count. No matter where they end up. You can’t fool the relentless stacks. The rising booktide. Even buying in books I once read and no longer have…those are bought to enjoy again.
   Oh, I’ve read it. There’s no rush to read it once more.
   Bullshit. If a book comes into the house, it should be read the same day. Whether I’ve read it before or not. Unfortunately, I’m at the mercy of the delivery driver. If the parcel arrives late in the day, early evening, I lose my shot at a great chunk of reading time.
   And that, trivial as it may sound, puts me in the thankless position of stashing the book somewhere. Next day is full of petty distractions, and the book goes unread. And that, dear non-reader, is how we build up entire sections of shelves that are unread and go unread and remain unread until we are dead.
   They aren’t books at that point. Just an extra layer of wall insulation.
   And so. Read. Chip at the iceberg of books. Enthusiasm on purchase versus lethargy on acquisition. Followed by enthusiasm again, on turning the page. Unless you detest the book. It’s been a long time since I tackled a book like that.
   The rule is to finish the damned thing. Read it all the way through and be done with it. The Devil’s Dictionary springs to mind. What of this bookcase I walk by every day? Is a suspect lurking on the shelves? Could there be a book there that I just won’t care for?
   Purchasing is irrelevant. Most of those books were purchases. A few were gifts. There should always be at least one book in your library that you never set down on a shelf. It walked into the stacks under its own steam, and you aren’t sure where it came from.
   No. Purchasing doesn’t matter. If you bought it and didn’t like it, you dodged a twelve-book epic. And if it was gifted to you…just be fucking honest and say it wasn’t for you. Even though it was for you, obviously.
   And the book that appeared out of nowhere? Might as well give it a shot. There’s a reverse mode to that one. A book that should definitely be on your shelves, but isn’t. You moved it from its usual spot, and now you can’t find it.
   Where the fuck did that go? And why? Why? That’s easy. You bought more books that will fit here, as part of a series. If you take out that one lone book and move it elsewhere. I am still looking for one book. It’s hiding. Or resting. Not sleeping. Resting its eyes.
   To go back to one of the duplicates. I’d bought a cheap paperback. It disappeared WHILE I WAS READING IT. Yes, that’s quite a skill I have. Can’t recommend developing that ability. In the end, I bought a cheaper duplicate copy and read it.
   Only when you’ve done that, as usual, do you then find the missing book. It was trapped down against the wall, by a series of coincidental moves and unhappy accidents. Only found that when I rearranged furniture, much later.
   I had to sit a stack of heavier books on top of the recovered volume, to bend it back into shape. It is rare that I damage books. That one wasn’t damaged. Fixable. I fixed. So where do I stand, concerning these books?
   In front of them. Instead of walking by them. It’s the only way to get them read.