Compulsive reading
“I am
simply a 'book drunkard.' Books have the same irresistible temptation for me
that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them.”
From L.M. Montgomery’s personal journals 1899
“We have sent for a lot of new books for our
Literary Society library here and when they come I’m simply going on
a spree. I shall read all night and all day. I’m a book-drunkard, sad
to say, and though I earnestly try to curb my appetite for reading I never met
with much success.”
From L.M. Montgomery’s letter of March 1905
Me too. All my life I have been unable to
resist this temptation.
‘Book addict’ or ‘reading addict’ is another
way of putting it, although there is nothing of the need to take more and more
to achieve less and less.
“I doubt if I shall ever have time to read
the book again -- there are too many new ones coming out all the time which I
want to read. Yet an old book has something for me which no new book can ever
have -- for at every reading the memories and atmosphere of other readings come
back and I am reading old years as well as an old book.”
From
This is all spot on.
Not only are there not enough hours in the
day to do all the reading some of us would like, there are not enough years in
our lives. We are even more spoiled
for choice now than L. M. Montgomery was then.
