Photo by Cephas

In light of the controversy surrounding Greg Mortenson and the questionable veracity of his Three Cups of Tea, and Scott “Dilbert” Adams recently praising himself under a fake name on a message board, I’ve decided that the veil of lies I parade around in every day must be lifted. There shan’t be any more secrets between us. My blog is now my confessional booth.

Here goes:

Hello, my name is Bryan, and I’m a book addict. A fiction junkie to be specific. I’m not content with only illuminating foreign realms of my own consciousness, I want to disappear inside a different consciousness altogether. And in my apartment I’m surrounded by my drug of choice: in the yellow bookcase, the white bookcase, the brown bookcase, the built-in bookcase, the two overflow stacks on my writing desk, the precarious tower on my night stand. Vonnegut, Highsmith, Steinbeck and King. Boyle, Chaon, Moody and Dahl. To name just a few of my trusted dealers.  

Yeah, I’m losing this war on drugs, and I don’t care.

And thankfully, neither does my wife. Hooray, she’s a book addict too! And she mainlines nonfiction as well as fiction. So there’s no hope for us. Sure, we’ve tried imposing moratoriums on book purchases, averting our eyes while driving past bookstores and feigning amnesia when it comes to the names of our favorite bookselling websites, but these attempts at self-control last as long as a Hemingway sentence. Because there’s always another title poking its precocious little face from a shelf or end cap or web page, practically begging us to add it to our collection. I swear it’s easier to leave the Humane Society empty-handed, and who are we to deny a good book, new or used, a loving, nurturing home?

By the way, if you do happen to visit our home, never tell us we have more books than we can possibly read in a lifetime. That kind of talk is a real buzz kill first of all, and second of all, will eventually expose you as a liar, because obviously the Universe is going to recognize our habit as virtuous and vital, and grant us at least a few extra decades to take care of business.

However, it must be said that we are doing our best in the here and now. Let me stress that we don’t just collect books we actually read them too (many of them; if I said “most” then I’d be the liar). And the reason we’re not drowning in books (though what a glorious way to exit!) is that every so often we take stock and donate both the read and unread in our inventory to the library, the local Goodwill, or we trade them in at a used bookstore…for credit…to…uh…buy different books. But come on, have you ever seen a bookshelf with empty spaces on it? It’s devastating, like a beloved family member suddenly missing teeth and ruining that beautiful smile you’ve always relied on to cheer you up.  

Anyway, now that I’ve come clean about my wife and I being book junkies and demonstrated how it’s not a problem, I can write guilt free in my next post about where we like to indulge ourselves, where we shamelessly celebrate our addiction in public.