It’s taken me a long time to realise I have a big problem here. I have now accumulated more books than I can ever possibly read in my lifetime, and even now the foremost thing on my mind is the next book I’m going to buy, and the one after that, and the five after that.

Even if I quit my job and stopped writing and dedicated myself to reading, I would still struggle to finish reading every book in my ‘to read’ pile. I’m looking at the piles of books as I type, all neat and orderly and loosely categorised. They sit in six piles ever increasing in size, in front of the wall to wall ceiling to floor bookshelves, which are already filled two columns thick.

But I can’t help myself, I’m addicted. Surely it’s a healthy obsession though? It could be much worse. I could be hooked on heroin, crack, sleeping pills, tobacco, booze, sex with corpses, porn (like that Japanese guy who was crushed by his own six tonne porn collection the other day), compulsive masturbation, any manner of unhealthy and illegal obsessions, but it’s just books, right? Books are good. Books teach you stuff – well except for ones like ‘Ffity Shades…’ and any of the godawful text light tomes ghost penned by wankers off reality shows. Those are garbage obviously.

Sure the first thing I do when I plan a holiday is bookmark all the bookshops, and pinpoint where all the second hand bookshops are, but it’s my hobby. Nothing beats the feeling of finding a rare gem or something you’ve been searching for the old fashioned way (without cheating and using the Internet, but I’ve done that too – Colin Wilson’s complete 7 volume Outsider series). Especially if you find it in a second hand bookshop or an op shop or a street market and get it for a bargain price.

It was this obsession for example, that sent me traipsing all over Chicago, taking the el and walking the last ten blocks in the freezing cold to find the bookshop I had sourced off the Internet had turned into a menswear store. When I showed my printout to the kindly proprietor he gently pointed out the ad was from 2010. It was now 2014, and the bookshop had closed two years previously.

Damn Internet!

Imagine the irony then, as I trained and trudged all the way back to the hotel in the now falling snow, and took a short cut down a side street only to discover right around the corner from my hotel was…

… a two storey second hand bookshop. But it was all worth it cos I found the Irvine Welsh novel missing from my collection. The owner then advised me that Mr Welsh actually lives in Chicago. No I didn’t look him up, I met him in Perth at a promo later and he wrote a really rude comment in one of his books for me, cos I asked him to.

So anyway, the piles of books. Yes they are all categorised. I think that’s part of my problem, I have too many interests. There’s the soccer pile, the wrestling pile, the horror pile, the novels pile, the Colin Wilson pile and the Charles Bukowski pile.

Still my mind races with two new Jack the Ripper books on the market, plus my promise to self to buy and read the new books of several of my colleagues in the Australian Horror Writers Association.

I read on buses, I read on trains, I read on the toilet – Stephen King was my ablution pleasure at uni in between drafting research papers. At one time I even taught myself to walk while I was out walking, so I could combine education and exercise. It worked for a while until I walked into a lake. It was a Costanza like attempt to merge two of your favourite things. His was sex and food, mine was reading and exercise. His was funnier.

So yes, I have too many books, but I don’t care. I want more, and you can’t stop me. Just as Casanova compulsively lusted after the next woman and the next one, so I lust for the smell of ink on faded parchment. You can keep your Kindle, even though I’ve got one for travelling. Nothing beats the smell of real books, the scent of wisdom and knowledge. They’re my loves, my treasures, my precious…