I wonder if I read too much, and why I feel compelled to have a book on me at all times. I’m not anti-social, although I like to spend long periods alone. I must have books — the way that others crave cashews or chew nails. I sometimes panic when I run out of books to read and I am in the middle of nowhere with time to kill. On long trips, I pack more books than I can possibly finish. I contemplate strange scenarios where I’m stuck in an elevator or locked in a building and there’s the small possibility that humanity will fail me. The books are trustworthy friends. And unless I get mugged by a pugilistic bibliophile, the books won’t leave me anytime soon. I wonder if this is a horrible conceit on my part or if this makes me a misanthrope. I wonder if all this is insalubrious. I wonder if this is an addiction.
I am the same way. Going to wedding last weekend, I wondered if it would be right to bring a book in with me (I decided against it--and was sorry for that). I feel completely ungrounded when I am in between books. I love the feel, the smell, the words passing before my eyes, the immersion that happens with a good book.
I am still recovering from reading Cormac McCarthy's Suttree. I need to write a review, but I don't even know where to start. The book had me so deep within that I feel a bit like a grounded fish. And how I am supposed to start another book now?
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