Bibliomania / A bit about me.

I love books more than I love reading (and I love to read!). This is known as bibliomania.  Although, my condition is far from that of Stephen Blumberg's. During my high school years and as a freshman in college I collected books incessantly. Over a period of two and a half years I collected around two-thousand volumes on every subject from gardening to Buddhism to foreign diplomacy. I was obsessed. Mind you, most of my purchases were used books under a buck or two. And in many cases they were free books from a number of odd sources. Nonetheless, I was spending way too much money, time, and energy buying books I had not time to read. Weird, huh?

I have always loved being around books. I worked at a library in Indianapolis throughout my high school career and worked in the archives at DePauw when I was in school there. I love visiting libraries when travel. I'm not sure where or why this fixation sprouted. Maybe its hereditary? My grandmother collected books as well. Regardless, for a while it was a big part of my life. Other people benefited from it too at times. I would get books for loved ones that I knew they would enjoy. About ninety-nine percent of my gifts to people during this time was books.

But this past summer I kind of snapped out of it. It began to feel like a burden. A weight. I stepped back and saw how unhealthy (and expensive) this obsession was. I realized I can love and appreciate books without suffering the expense of excessively obtaining them. And I realized that in my buying frenzy I bought a lot of books I knew I never even wanted to read. So, without second thoughts, I sold all but a small portion of my books. I kept the ones I knew I'd read and a few from my antiquarian collection. And boy did it feel good! 

I'm not sure why I chose to share this. I guess it's the first thing that came to mind.

Below is my bookshelf here at school. This is probably about a third of my remaining collection. Also in the picture: Cat food/water bowl (I'm a cat guy), salt rock (it glows!), my lovely sweaters, and a beautiful painting made by my grandfather. Check out his artwork here! 

Interesting videos on bibliomania (not that you're particularly interested):

"A mild case of bibliomania"
"Bibliomania" -crazy. weird.  hilarious. if you watch one, watch this.
"Bibliomania - documentary by ABAA