Seriously, I lack discipline, in among other things, going overboard in acquiring books. I am supposed to be on a "only buy poetry" diet, and borrow fiction and non-fiction from the public library (one of the absolute joys of living in this Whitman land) but no, I have absolutely no self control.

So I went overboard, and bought four books of fiction: Saul Bellow's "The Adventures of Augie March" (with the idea that I will make myself read through this essential novel if I have my own copy that I can mutilate with my red and green pens), J.M. Coetzee's "Foe" (JMC does mean a chautauqua on fiction on fiction - see his "Elizabeth Costello" or his Nobel Lecture), Italo Calvino's "Numbers in the Dark" (mainly because this was previously owned by Sturgeon, and I am now, officially, addicted to second hand books that smell of expensive cigars[1]), and Richard Powers's "The Time of Our Singing" (because my book-runner friend C had classed RP with JMC in an email yesterday, and he was right too - RP's writing was so good that it kept me up way past bed time last night!).

I am proud to record, however, that I managed to put five other books back on the self (not really, I will probably get them next week), and winnow the pile to half its orginial height before I walked out of the store, lighter by $13.50 (looke ma, this is less than five lattes at Starbucks for two hardbacks and three paperbacks). Yes, I should sign up for a BA program this winter, seek refuge in a Higher Power (but what if, as J.L. Borges wrote, paradise is a library?), and wean myself from this space-destroying habit of buying and sniffing books.

Maybe I should begin by redirecting all my disposbale income towards expensive shoes and designer wear. Maybe I should stop converting anything I spend money on into book equivalents (you mean that cappuccino is gonna cost me two paperbacks or one hardback!). Maybe I should build myself more bookshelves[2], and purge the piles on my bed by putting them under my bed so that I feel less guilty. Maybe I should simply find a demanding significant other with whom I can "bond" so that I will stop submiliating myself with books. Maybe all of these will be my resolutions for New Year's.

[1] See this recent discursive post at Guardian Book Blog on the joys of book sniffing