Books are our friends

The blogger over at Sporked has too many books and only one bookshelf. I have a similar problem, too many books for too few shelves, but I have lots of bookcases. I still have books on the table, books on the floor, books on top of the wardrobe, and (confession time) I still buy more books. Not as many as I used to buy, and I do give some away (which I never used to do) but the collection is growing rather than shrinking.

I'm always reading more than one book at a time. Currently:

• Lewis Thomas: The Medusa and the Snail
• Emily Bernard, editor: Some of My Best Friends - Writings on Interracial Friendships
• Barbara Kingsolver: Small Wonder - essays
• Anna Quindlen: Loud and Clear - essays
• Christine Hunsicker, editor: A Dog's World - true stories of man's best friend on the road

The most recent book I purchased is Ann Patchett: Truth & Beauty - a Friendship which I've not heard anything about, but bought at the supermarket because I liked the cover. It's got a drawing of a flying insect and an ant on the front cover, and the back cover blurb describes the book as "at once a grief-haunted eulogy and a larger meditation on the solace and limitations of friendship." - Washington Post

So how could I resist? I may start reading it before I finish any of the others.