Bibliophilia is my BIG ISSUE

What's the name given to a complete addiction to books, not for the sake of buying per se, but books that you see from afar, at distance, and one's already checking the pounds and pennies with the tip of one's fingers poking through one's pocket? I am pretty sure Bibliophilia is my issue. A BIG ISSUE so to speak!

I go somewhere and if there are books available at an acceptable price, of subjects that really pick me up to a good read, I get them. My wife says she's driven crazy by my addiction and often argues that I really need to stop buying them. "Do you ever read them?" - she asks me livid with two or three guilty pleasures of mine in her hand. In fact, I do. I honestly do. Not as many as I would love to because time is scarce; kiddo, PhD, start-up, blog, wife, preparing for a future career... my reading times are confined to these 1.7 miles in between home and workplace. 

34 minutes with eyes planted on bright pages of whatever gets to my scope after breakfast, at hands reach, from a dusty pile of reasons I'm driving my wife manic with. There I go, successfully avoiding bikes on fast acceleration and anxious passers rapidly pass by for their own professional duties. Never killed a snail, never had a crash, always mind the traffic lights. Thank whoever God you Love. I probably own a sixth sense developed in a Darwinian way from early days of Petzi (my first drug ever)! Who knows? A sat-nav based on the pure pleasure of a good read.

I know now that I suffer from Bibliophilia because whilst looking for the technical/clinical term to niche me "disease" cosy cosy, I found a website with considerations on addiction to books. Signs you're addicted to books, I've got 5 of them severely entrenched in me blood:

Number 8:

"This is all you think about when you picture your dream home"

Number 9:

"Walking by a closed bookstore is torture"

Number 14:

"TV is OK... sometimes"

Number 19:

"The book is always, always, always better"

Number 24:

"Finishing a book you love is like losing a best friend"

Today, as I walked myself to the nearest ATM in the Queens Medical Centre, I got four new ones. All by James Herriot, all with lovely covers, all 50 pence and all with that lovely old scent that only books spread and that inevitably deepens my Bibliophilia even strongly. And I say to myself...

BIG ISSUEEEEE, BIG ISSUUEEEEE ANYONE?