Book addiction

This is a PARTIAL view of my bookcase of "to read" books. There is lower shelf not in the picture. In the bedroom there are about 75 books of poetry also. Do I need more books?

Absolutely!!When there is a book sale that fills a full block of a cobblestoned SoHo street and the books are $1 each. You bet I need more books. But I am learning restraint -- yes, I am. Here are the ten books for ten bucks that I got.

Yes, it took a while to be sensible. I lugged around others, including a couple of really neat coffee table photography books. But do I need more coffee table books? Especially when they're heavy and,of course, the ones on the coffee table aren't all there are in the place? Rhetorical question.

Except for the Tulip book, a recent purchase form the Metropolitan Museum for $12 and containing far more than I ever thought I wanted to know about tulips, these are mostly art quilt books and Tibet books and if I get into a long telephone conversation, I love sitting here and paging through them as I talk.

I have always been a book addict. Not the devouring Jane Austin at age 13 type [our small town library did not have Austin or Bronte!] but because everything I want to know is in books somewhere and many things I didn't know I wanted to know or ought to know or would just enjoy knowing or would feel greatly enriched by knowing -- it's all been written. I find gems of wisdom nearly every day in the stuff I read. This is an addiction I do not plan to give up.