Today in Reading, or Too Many Books?

I am joking of course when I even suggest there are too many books in the world, or too many books on my bed or too many books I haven't read.

I mean, could there really be too many?

And yet, ahem, the number of books I'd like to read appears to be exponential.

I've set a goal of reading a new memoir for every month of 2021 because I so enjoy teaching that genre of writing. And to that end, I've already read Parallel Time by Brent Staples, a memoir of Act One of Staples' life, long before he joined the editorial board of The New York Times. I've also read Home Before Dark, Susan Cheever’s memoir about her father.

And of course, I want to keep up with the latest in Italian fiction -- or at the very least, the latest in the slice of Italian literature that concerns me most (emerging women authors and older women writers overlooked by Anglophone publishers). Yet I got distracted and began reading Tre volte all'alba by Alessandro Baricco, who is not a woman but is writing in Italian. My sister, Liz, had bought me the book and it sat along with quite a few other unread books on a small bookshelf in my room, waiting for me to notice it.

It's not even about being too busy. I work for myself, in many ways.

But, given the sheer number of books I would like to read, will there ever be an end to all of this?

There are books on the floor, books in an Amish wooden bread basket I got from an antiques store that was meant to contain all of my reading-in-progress. Instead, it's permanently full -- overflowing, in fact -- and cannot accommodate any new bit of reading.

So the new bits of reading go on the floor, the old settee in the bedroom, the top of the bureau... 

I may be trying to read too much at once.

Take yesterday, for example. I had woken up early and then dormicchiavo for a bit so my mind was kind of pensive, restless, whatever, and it wound up being the most marvelous reading day because I re-read a book, and wound up finding something I had missed the first time. Namely a wonderful poet – Jolanda Insana – whose work is similar to poetry I am translating. So three cheers for Contemporary Italian Women Poets, an anthology that I've had for years, and which apparently I have not read in full.

I am also reading: 

Inventing the Future: the Art of Memoir

Walker in the City, by Alfred Kazin (which contains another version of the "Brownsville Kitchen" essay that I teach).

I have begun to *re-read*:

A Perfect Spy (in honor of the great one's death)

Bella Mia, by Donatella Di Pietrantonio (amazing Italian author who wrote A GIRL RETURNED)

I've taken out of the library, and have on deck:

Dear Mr. You

The Last Interview -- Anthony Bourdain edition

Basically, it's like I am rolling in books. 

I know this is a fairly prosaic statement for any booklover. We are all surrounded by books. But sometimes a feeling overcomes us, right? It's like we are consuming the books, not merely reading them. It's like wrapping ourselves up in a cuddly sweater. We are wrapping ourselves in words, in beloved books.

But when is it too much?