So many books . . . so little time

I love to read. It's no secret that I have had books for years that I haven't been able to get to because every time I hear of a new one or see one at Costco or Borders (darn those 3 for 2 deals) I pretty much buy them. It might be considered a problem, but I'm not in debt and I don't neglect my children or my life in general, but I definitely have a real aching for books.

I'm currently in the middle of one that's the first of three. The third one I picked up at Costco because it had the designation from The New York Times as the best book of the year (The Lay of the Land). I thought that might be worth reading, but when I opened it, I realized it's the third with the same character, although I can't tell if it's a series, or just the same main character. Not wanting to be left out, I promptly ordered the first two (The Sportswriter, and Independence Day) from paperbackswap.com and began reading. Shortly thereafter a dear friend suggested we read Water for Elephants, which I picked up along with Love in the Time of Cholear, and she recommended Ann Patchett, so I bought Bel Canto which was on the "buy 1 get the 2nd for 50% off" table at Borders, and I picked up another Jodi Picoult (one of my favorite contemporary authors). And my stack keeps building, but I don't have any more time in my day, darn it!!!

Then we arrive at Christmas morning. Wow! Everyone is pleased with their gifts, all three children are happy (whew!!), my husband and I each bought the other an iPod nano, totally unexpected, and then there was a book from my sister-in-law to both of us. It's called The New Kings of Nonfiction edited and introduced by Ira Glass. He hosts a show called This American Life on NPR that is one of my favorite things to listen to. I read the introduction and immediately thought, "What do I have to do to occupy everyone else in my house for the remainder of the day, so I can just read?" (By the way, the premise of the book is pieces by journalists who have empathy for their subjects and get into the story in a way that is really unique for non-fiction writers. I'm not doing it justice, but believe me, I was trapped)

As I read the introduction, Ira speaks about the authors and immediately I made a mental list to look for other things by those authors to get my hands on. So not only am I in the middle of one book, with two more to follow, then I pick up this new one and have a mental list of umpteen authors to look for the next time I'm out or online.

Could this be the source of my inability to be here, now?