I need an intervention

As my partner - or any keen-eyed visitor to our house - will attest, I've got a bit of a book problem. I just can't get enough of them and, despite making a game go of it, our cheap shelving can but sag under the weight of vast quantities of printed matter.

The majority of this is paperback fiction in various genres, a sizeable portion of which stems from our leaner times spent scouring second-hand shops [there were a lot of duplicates in evidence when we moved in, particularly Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams], but there's healthy representation from comic collections [trade paperbacks, to those in the know], a comprehensive selection of reference books, travel guides, factual histories and biographies, and a handful of other entertainments that seek to defy neat categorization [The KGB Handbook, for instance, doesn't exactly fit the bill of a reference guide, unless you're planning a serious interrogation].

In an effort to keep the burgeoning mass under some semblance of control, routine culls have been undertaken, wherein dozens of books - usually fairly ratty paperbacks with which one or other of us has no sentimental attachment - are judged, found wanting and summarily loaded into carrier bags for a one-way trip to the old books' home. This has not proven a particularly profitable enterprise, and the boat was missed by a truly tantalizing margin when we finally relented and cleared out the Vonnegut doubles - mere days before the great man bid us adieu. Not that I would ever have wanted to profit on the death of that towering Goliath of both American literature and common sense; indeed the irony of that insignificant event was so perfectly in keeping with the minor unfairnesses that permeate his work that it could even be interpreted, albeit everso loosely, as our own small tribute.

But - and not wanting to purposefully quote Ronnie Corbett - I digress.

There are some titles that I've felt duty-bound to read, eventually forcing myself to tackle them once sufficient motivation has been scraped together. Stoker's Dracula falls into this category. As a big horror-head, I've long felt obliged to absorb the grandaddy of all vampire fiction - after all, what other works have so decisively spawned an entire sub-genre? And I must confess to some disappointment on finally reading it: Van Helsing came across as massively obsequious and I found his interest in Mina Harker rather inappropriate. In addition to which it was as dull as ditchwater. This is particularly galling since the time I spend reading has suffered the twin setbacks of a] my no longer getting the train to work, and b] the birth of my son, meaning that I generally have to pack a few pages into the narrow window between getting into bed and falling asleep, whereupon I am invariably awoken by a sound that could for all the world be a book falling to the floor. Allow me, at this point, to draw a discreet veil over the finer detail of my bedroom activities.

I haven't even read all of the books I've made a point of gathering over the years. A quick scan of the shelves reveals numerous tomes that I most assuredly needed to possess, but apparently not to digest. To this day, I diligently maintain a physical hit-list of desirable items [not all of them books], about which I've learnt just enough to know that they belong in my collection. Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius series and - um - Ice-T's The Ice Opinion all remain as pristine as the day I acquired them. I've only idly dipped into my copy of The Marquis de Sade's One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom, but that's the sort of book that lends itself to inconstant scrutiny: to subject oneself, without respite, to the onslaught of filth and degradation described therein would surely necessitate purification of the 'scalding bleach and wire wool' variety.

Recently, my book problem has become more acute, in terms both of load and available shelf space, since I thought it was a good idea to start collecting hardbacks. How could I possibly resist their durability, their tactility? The saddle-stitched binding, metallic spine lettering and superior dust jacket design? They're just so damned covetable.

I'm also collecting Somerfield bags. I think it's time we had a clearout.