From: engelson-sean@cs.yale.edu (Sean Philip Engelson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Reading IS an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Date: 31 Dec 1992 14:31:48 -0500
Organization: Yale AI Mobile Robotics Project
Distribution: world
Reply-To: engelson-sean@cs.yale.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: fridge.ai.cs.yale.edu


In article <1992Dec31.183207.25805@crd.ge.com>, meltsner@crd.ge.com (Kenneth J. Meltsner) writes:
|> 
|> Are you a biblioholic?

Good question.  And, BTW, excellent book.  But then, aren't they
all....:-)  Some of the questions here I found rather puzzling,
however--- let's have a look:

|> (Reprinted without permission from Biblioholism: The Literary
|> Addiction, by Tom Raabe, Fulcrum Publishing, 1991.  An excellent book
|> for sufferers of this syndrome and their co-dependents.  My apologies
|> if everyone has seen this one.)
|> 
|> 1. When you go to a bookstore with a friend, are you usually carrying
|> more books when you leave than your friend is?

Almost invariably, except for those rare occasions when I can convince
my friend to carry some of my purchase for me (I'm not a
weight-lifter, after all...)

|> 2. Do you wake up the morning after, unable to remember how many books
|> you bought or how much you spent on them?

The morning after?  I forget immediately after I get home; I suppose
it's some sort of defense reaction---otherwise I'd start reeling about
the flat: "Good lord, I spent $450 on books--I can't eat for the next
two months...Oh well, let's see what I have to read..."

|> 3. Do you, inexplicably, yank down a volume from the store shelves,
|> open it, and shove your nose deeply into the binding, hungrily
|> inhaling the ink and paper smells?

Well, yes, but it's not inexplicable.  Books smell WONDERFUL!

|> 4. Have you ever bought the same book twice without knowing it?

Oh sure.  The last one I didn't notice until my recent move, when I
noticed two copies of Feynman's QED in my collection (purchased a
couple or three years ago)

|> 5. When you go to a bookstore after work, thus arriving home late at
|> night, do you lie about where you have been, telling your spouse you
|> were at a bar?

One of the advantages of living alone, let me tell you...

|> 6. At Christmastime, do you buy your loved ones books that you want to read?

Why?  I buy ME the books I want to read!  But, yes, occasionally.

|> 7. Have you ever given up on a book before you started it?

This I don't get.  "Given up"?  I own plenty of books I haven't read
(yet), and even some I'm unlikely to ever read (like "The Cast Metals
Handbook", but then you never know).

|> 8. Are you unable to walk through a mall without stopping at a bookstore?

It's easier in malls, since the bookstores there tend to be
BigChainBookMarkets(tm), easy to ignore (unless they have a sale table
out front).  Small bookshops on the street are impossible to resist,
though....particularly the ones with the high wooden shelves and
narrow aisles....

|> 9. Do you have a personal library on an entire subject, none of which
|> you have read?

Well, I haven't read much of by collection on smelting, forging, and
smithing.  

|> 11. Have you ever bought a book because you liked the cover design?

Sure.  The last one I got, _Peppers_ by Amal Naj, is a wonderful
little book that I recommend highly.

|> 12. When at a garage sale, is the first thing you look at the books?

The "first" thing?  What else *is* there?  (Except the occasional
bookshelf, of course)

|> 13. Have you ever been fired from a job, or reprimanded, for reading?

If stern looks count, then yes (being an occasional miracle-worker
helps in this regard), until I got the hang of reading on the sly.

|> 14. Have you and your immediate family ever "discussed" your
|> book-buying and reading habits?

From time to time.  One gets adept at steering the conversation away
from the topic, with practice, however.

|> 15. When you watch TV, do you always have a book in your lap for slow
|> parts and commercials?

Rather, when I read some books I sometimes have a TV on for the
occasional slow part or the odd loss of concentration...

|> 17. Does panic set in when you find yourself in a barber's chair or
|> under a hairdryer with nothing to read?

I generally doze in the barber's chair, though being on a train or bus
with nothing to read is truly a terror! (It's like being in the
Twilight Zone: you're forced to read the ads on the walls, over and
over and over ...)

|> 18. Have you ever become suddenly deeply interested in an obscure
|> topic and immediately bought six or more books on that topic?

Does finding an interesting looking book in a bookshop and then buying
a number of books on that topic count?  Or buying several books on a
completely new subject on a single recommendation?  If so, an emphatic
YES! 

|> 19. Do you ever lie about how many books you've bought?

To whom?  It's hard to keep track, in any case...

|> 20. Do you devise grand and devious strategies for getting your books
|> into the house to avoid your spouse's or family's scrutiny?

Again, being single is GREAT (in this way, at least)!

|> 22. When a stranger walks into your house or apartment, are his or her
|> first words usually a comment about your books?

They better be!  If they aren't then either the stranger isn't worth
knowing, or they've intentionally insulted me!

|> 23. If someone asks you for a reading list of the twenty most
|> influential books you've ever read, do you happen to have such a list
|> on your person?

Who can keep track, for Gd's sake?

|> 24. Do you have at least six books next to your bed?

Actually, I *think* that there's a bed under that pile of books in the
back room (I suppose that's why they call it a "bed"room, right?)...

|> 25. When a bookstore clerk has been unable to locate a certain book in
|> the stacks, have you ever been able to find that book?

From time to time.  Usually in my collection after I return home.

|> [Janice's note: I scored 17. Can anyone beat me?]

How's 19?  I guess, from the postscript to the questionnaire, that I
am "in space right now, a full-throated scream careening off the
canyon walls, and it's only a matter of time until [I] splat onto the
canyon floor with a puff of dust and a hearty yelp a` la Wile E.
Coyote of cartoon fame."  Id est: .....
					.
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					  A
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					      U
					      U
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					      G
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					        H
					        
					       \|/
					      --o--
					       /|\
					      SPLAT!!

-- 
Sean Philip (Shlomo) Engelson		
Yale Department of Computer Science	
Box 2158 Yale Station			
New Haven, CT 06520