Everyone who reads books sooner or later accumulates A Pile. You know how it is: you just tend to buy more books than you read, then 10 years later you look around and you're knee-deep. You read some, but then you get more books, which go on top, and the whole cycle starts over again.
I'm very pleased to say that yesterday due to an unfortunate brush with the flu, I read 3 books from THE VERY START of my pile! In a fit of madness I started at the bottom, not the top, and started reading my way up. The thick heavy dust got blown off, and they got read. "Apocalypse: The Musical" by Robert Rankin (which I hated); "Lord Of Light" by Roger Zelazny (fair to middling); and "Involution Ocean" by Bruce Sterling (fantastic). I can't remember buying Apocalypse, but Lord Of Light was one of the first books I ever bought from the book club, and Involution Ocean I borrowed from a friend. Seeing as how I first joined the book club ten years ago, this was something akin to archaeology. Archaoliteracy perhaps?
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Thanks to the kind people at Dymocks who let me review stuff, I generally have quite a big pile. However my philosphy is to make time for that pile, and if I buy a book to read it asap - I just can't resist. If the book is fairly thick, I have to restrict myself to stopping myself from reading after 6pm otherwise I wouldn't get any sleep.
I read the latest Isobelle Carmody in two days flat. I guess I like to skim read (can't stop myself) and then re-read again, and again, and again for the subtleties. You'll find something on the 16th read-through that you didn't pick up on the last 15, that changes your view of the book completely.
This is why I have 210 books in my room, and why most of them are falling apart.
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