Repost: Book Riot Article- What Your Book Pile Says About You

Original Article
Jan. 4, 2013
by Wallace Yovetich

Congratulations, you read your books! Your pile is small enough to be manageable. You have the effortlessly intellectual look of the person who reads a lot, but doesn’t overwhelm themselves to the point that they no longer know what unread books they own. Non-readers probably think all readers are like you. You belong to a small group of readers who are able to control themselves when it comes to the written word. Relish the knowledge that you can name all of your books… for now.

Poor dear. You are the one that had the BEST of intentions. You began your stacks with the belief that you wouldactually read the books you placed there. You had no idea, when you started this, that you would have so little will power when it came to bookstores and libraries. Soon the lust for books overcame you, you greedy little thing, you, and the stacks grew taller and wider. You now have more unread books than read books… welcome to the club.

Once upon a time in a land far away (or possibly even the exact same house you live in now), you used to believe that you would read all of the books you owned over and over again, so you kept them. All of them. Eventually you acknowledged that some books would never be re-read, but you couldn’t (or wouldn’t) part with them. You decided to use them for decorating, and soon your oh-so-cool book-fireplace became full, so you started building perfect stacks. Before you knew it you had several perfect stacks. (And soon you will have a room full of perfect stacks… good luck with that.)

You are the giver-upper; the realist; the I-know-I-won’t-ever-read-these-againer who keeps them anyway. You have been obtaining books for so long that you actually incorporate them into usefulness (a table, a lamp, wallpaper) because you cannot get rid of them, yet there is no where else for them to go. Congratulations, you are a hoarder of books, there is no cure – there is only Pinterest and the tutorials that you will post about how to incorporate unread books into daily usefulness.

What does my book pile look like? I have the super tall, but neat stack of books that I thought I would eventually read.  I still think that!