From: meltsner@crd.ge.com (Kenneth J. Meltsner)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Reading as an addiction (Was: 92 in rabreview)
Date: 31 Dec 92 18:32:07 GMT
Reply-To: meltsner@crd.ge.com
Organization: GE Research and Development Center



As I was told by a friend when I first got married, and started
complaining about the constant need for more bookshelves, "Would you
rather be married to a person who couldn't pass a bookstore without
going in, or one who couldn't pass a bar without going in?"

It's worked out okay.  She buys books, I buy tools and wood.  We're
both happy.

Parenthood is the only way to stop incessant reading.  Janice dropped
from ~180 a year to ~70 (40 or so for her review column) when Billy
was born.

Taken from one of her fanzines:

Are you a biblioholic?

(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?

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

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?

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

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?

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

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

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

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

10. Do you ever buy books simply because they were on sale?

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

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

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

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

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

16. Do you "watch" television sports with the sound off?

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

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

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

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

21. Has your book buying ever embarrassed your family or friends?

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

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?

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

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?

If you answered yes to more than four questions, you are looking down
into the deep and woeful pit of biblioholism. If you answered yes to
more than eight, you are hanging by your fingernails on the edge, your
legs kicking in the emptiness and your eyes imploringly turned
heavenward for rescue. And if you answered yes to more than twelve
questions, you are in space right now, a full-throated scream
careening off the canyon walls, and it's only a matter of time
until you splat onto the canyon floor with a puff of dust and a
hearty yelp a` la Wile E. Coyote of cartoon fame. But then, you
already knew you were kind of weird.

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

===============================================================================
Ken Meltsner                        | meltsner@crd.ge.com (518) 387-6391
GE Research and Development Center  | Fax:  (518) 387-6474
P.O. Box 8, Room KWD270		    | Nothing I say should be attributed
Schenectady, NY 12301               | to my employer, and probably vice-versa
"It's probable, just not very likely." -- Fire Maidens From Outer Space.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books