Too many books...

Source: from here

The above poster expresses how I often feel about reading: a kind of desperate clamouring pressure to get through the pile of unread books I have on my bookshelf or the mental list of classic and contemporary literature I feel I should read. Ridiculously, this even gets a bit stressful sometimes, which is why reading the conclusion of John Miedema's book, Slow Reading (I wrote more about it here), is a good reminder that the reason why we get hooked on books in the first place is pleasure, not to prove ourselves or tick off titles on a list. So, I thought that I'd share those insightful words here:

"It is often said that a person can only read about five thousand books in a lifetime. It is a small range of books given the accelerating quantity available to us. This limitation might lead some readers to rush their reading, thereby increasing the number of books. This response turns a reader into a tourist, jumping from experience to experience, noting only the highlights, being able to say he or she has done it, though not entirely sure what was done. Another response is to simply and happily acknowledge that life is indeed short, and that our smaller selection of books represents a unique expression of our character. This second choice removes the needless pressure from reading, and restores it as a great pleasure."