Opinion: Why do I hoard more books than I could possibly read? An investigation

Publisher’s Weekly recently reported that book sales for the first half of the year are down once again, continuing a trend that has accelerated since the pandemic.

As usual, I seem to be out of step. After a few years of joining the Kindle cult, I am back to my old bibliophile ways of buying more books than I will possibly have time to read. I do this not just out of compulsion, but aspiration (and, more practically, for research on various writing assignments). When I go to a great bookstore, which, to me, is like a cathedral, I feel the need to tithe. Some might call me a book hoarder.

I once read that buying books represents the illusion of buying the time needed to read them. That sounds about right. But these personal inclinations usually stem from a personal story. Here is mine. It takes a few turns.

I grew up around books, which is one of the few good things I can say about how I grew up. I remember opening my parents’ dusty hardcover of James Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake� and thinking: How do people read this? (OK, so I still think that about “Finnegan’s Wake.�) I remember my mom’s rows of paperback Dorothy Sayers mystery novels. Even then, I could sense the magic contained within two covers, and I carried that sense of magic into adulthood.

In a former life, in another city, I had hundreds of books in the house. They lined shelves, and they sat in unruly stacks. Then, suddenly, that old life ended. My life partner, Kate, got sick and died. I lost my job, and, to some extent, my mind. I was sort of exiled to another city, Houston, with most of my old Dallas life, including the books, left in storage, where they remain. I started packing lightly and adhering to minimalism. Hence the Kindle, which I had sworn off for years as a not tangible enough reading experience. I fell into a rather spartan existence.

But something happened a few months back. I’m not exactly sure what it was, but I can trace the steps. I made my maiden voyage to Ikea, a story in itself, and I bought a bookcase, which had a strange domesticating effect on what I still think of as my temporary lodging in a friend’s townhouse. I figured I needed to fill that bookcase. And I slowly returned to the pleasure of holding a book, reading a book, and, yes, buying a book.

Since my work is to write about books, I have some form of excuse. But there’s more to it than that. I remembered how much I love books as physical objects: their smell, their feel, the sensory reading experience they offer. I like getting them in the mail. I am interminably curious, and unrealistically ambitious. It’s a dangerous combination. I’ll be watching an Elia Kazan movie and suddenly I’ll remember that Richard Schickel wrote an acclaimed biography of the great director, whose legacy was tarnished when he named names during the Hollywood blacklist. I don’t own that biography. One thing leads to another. Again and again.

The books get in the way sometimes. They pile up on the arm of the chair where I sit to watch TV. They take up the space on my ottoman where my feet are supposed to go. The stacks of galleys I receive as a book reviewer have taken over a whole table, organized by publication month.

On the table, at the moment, is the Penguin Classics edition of Dickens’ “Bleak House,� which I’ve always wanted to read. There’s Haynes Johnson’s ’90s postmortem “Divided We Fall,� because I’ve been tinkering with the idea of writing a book about the decade. There’s Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,� because the movie is coming out soon and I might write something about it. There’s Mel Watkins’ “On the Real Side: A History of African American Comedy From Slavery to Chris Rock,� because it’s a great overview of one of my favorite subjects.

In buying books, I’m feeding the delusion that I will get to them all. Because, from my cockeyed perspective, it’s the noble thing to do. And perhaps it takes me back to better times. Yes, book sales are down. But I’m once again doing my part to right the ship.

Chris Vognar is a freelance culture writer. He was the 2009 Nieman arts and culture fellow at Harvard University.