read all of the books i own

Since the number of books to be read is not a dwindling constant, I am finding this task to be challenging. Since entering this goal online, I have read four books and currently have three others in progress. This sounds remarkably like progress until I realize:

1. The woman who does my nails has given me three of her books to read.
2. In unpacking moving boxes I found another eleven books, two of them unread and still in the shopping bag from the bookstore.
3. My in-laws are here for a visit and gave us three books as part of our housewarming gift.

Even if I count the three “in progress” books as “completed” books, I have still managed to fall behind by one book from where I started. It seems that books (like paper mess and bunny rabbits) multiply when left unattended.

House designs are all wrong these days. What I mean by this is quite often in newly constructed homes I have found that the floorplan still contains a “formal living room” at the front of the house. In today’s society, very few people actually seem to use a formal living room and we, as buyers or renters, are often left with that thought of “What on earth do I do with that space?”

We have solved this question at my house by converting the front room into a home library—a place where all of our books can happily reside together in some semblance of order, no longer stacked sideways or two rows deep or on top of the bookshelf stacked to the ceiling.

While an excellent solution in theory, this has its drawbacks as well. Once you have an area named as a “book room” or a “library” it seems that there is a compulsion and a responsibility to fill it with books. This means that if I am within a 100 yard radius of a bookstore, I find myself sucked in and browsing the new books as well as my old favorites. I will go home and make an actual count, but I think that I must have 15-20 books on my shelves right now that I have not read—not counting textbooks etc. Ack!