An Impotent Library Revealed

 

“Being rich is not about how much money you have or how many homes you own; it’s the freedom to buy any book you want without looking at the price and wondering if you can afford it.”                                                                                           ― John Waters, Role Models

For my first post, I have to get something off my chest…

I admit it. I’m a Bibliotaph… A collector of books. I’m obsessed and I can’t stop. It feels like an illness, a real overwhelming obsession. Am I mad, Doc!?

But, wait a second! Don’t call the doctor… it feels… GREAT!

I LOVE books! Books, books, books! Books about murder, books about cults, books about jazz or about the occult; books on the décor in dictators’ homes, Weimar-era Berlin, sex in Ancient Rome; books about books, poetry, plays, books for all seasons, a book for each day…

Ok.

Enough with the Dr Seuss spiel.

I love books. Well, collecting books. And over the past four years I have managed to accumulate around 540 of the things. My real trouble is… I’ve barely read any of them! Maybe 50ish in total? That’s not great – it’s an impotent library.

Sure, I dip in and out of the non-fiction and poetry books, but I’ve not seriously sat down and consumed as many as I should have. So I’ve made a list – just a short one – of the top 18 books (poetry not included) which I aim to read this year.

When it comes down to it, I’m a pretty slow reader. I could blame the internet for this, or the fast modern world in which we live for its many distractions, keeping me away from all these glorious books. But I won’t.

I will, henceforth, strive to read and gorge on the platter of paperbacks which I have included below.

So, there we have it. I’ve been publicly shamed. Now I’m off to read a book…

 

• Show Your Work – Austin Kleon
• Perversion (Ideas in Psychoanalysis) – Claire Pajaczkowska
• The Art of Creative Thinking – Rod Jenkins
• Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons – John Carter
• Ways of Seeing – John Berger
• Misogynies – Joan Smith
• Marquis de Sade – David Carter
• The Victorian Underworld – Kellow Chesney
• Bob Dylan: Watching The River Flow 1966-1995 – Paul Williams
• Dictator’s Homes – Peter York
• Meat is Murder: An Illustrated Guide to Cannibal Culture – Mikita Brottman
• Innocent When You Dream: Tom Waits’ Collected Interviews – Mac Montandon
• The Odyssey – Homer
• Writing In Restaurants – David Mamet
• Chronicles Volume One – Bob Dylan
• The Labyrinth and Other Stories – Luis Borges
• The Bloody Chamber – Angela Carter
• David Cronenberg: Interviews – Serge Grunberg