Membrotarastar

My library (for now anyway) includes all the books I've read since 2010, rather than the books I own. Year after year, I've told myself I'll read all of the books I own before I buy any new ones, but that never happens. Then I read Walter Benjamin's "Unpacking My Library" where he says that a true book collector has never read everything he owns. So I guess that makes me a book collector of sorts and I'm okay with that. Some of the books in my library I had read before 2010, then picked up again more recently, sometimes multiple times.

I have a Ph.D. in English so I do a lot of reading! The thing is, I don't always have time to read just for fun or relaxation, so I'm always making an effort to make time for that too. I read an article once about the history of book publishing and readership, and the author made a comment about how people in previous eras, having less access to books and information, valued their reading more than we do now. It reminded me that, as a kid, I used to read with relentless enthusiasm and attention - and there's absolutely no reason I shouldn't be able to hang on to that. Just cause you do it for a living doesn't mean you can't enjoy it, right?!