the corner of your eye: books purchased, not yet read

Back when Nick Hornby used to write (and periodically publish anthologies of) the "stuff I've been reading" column for The Believer magazine, one of my favorite aspects of his pieces was the way he began each monthly reading report with a list of books read and books acquired. The two lists diverged more often than not, and -- as so many bibliophiles will recognize in themselves -- together the two lists made up a much clearer portrait of the whole of who Hornby was and wished he were than if one only took into account the books he'd actually read.

I thought of the The Believer last week when I came across a piece at Publisher's Weekly (via bibliofeminista) by Gabe Habash, The Wonderful and Terrible Habit of Buying Too Many Books. The post as a whole is a great ode to the accumulation of books, and I highly recommend it to anyone else like Hanna and I who find books are the main thing which is pushing us in the direction of a bigger apartment. We both come by it genetically since both sets of parents have, likewise, filled every nook and cranny of homespace with books both read and unread. As Habesh writes:

There are just too many books to read. And while one might make the very good point that you could just wait to buy them when you have more room, there’s something about putting them in a row with other books, read and unread, that creates the cumulative impression of your reading self. Because, when it comes to reading, there will always be more book that you haven’t read than books that you have, and your reading ambition will always be more important than your reading accomplishments.