It is a relationship made in literary heaven. People who are passionate about reading consume books because of an all-consuming need to read. Those affected/afflicted seem incapable of resisting the urge to acquire printed material to satisfy this gentle pathology. We are among them. There is nothing more anticipatory and exciting than being confronted by literary choices, by viewing the names of writers one knows and admires, by sighting book titles you've read about and aspire to read.

Of course, there's a bit of a problem with book clutter as well, since over the years the continual acquisition of books, too few of which have ever been shed does present a complicating factor in providing room for them. It would make good sense if, having read a book, one passes it on to others and there is a movement that does exactly that. I've come across a book sitting on a bench at the airport just waiting for some to rescue it from abandonment; deliberately, I've felt, but haven't succumbed since it wasn't 'my type' of literature.

In his many bi-weekly trips to the library my husband cannot restrain himself from browsing among the books that the library seeks to de-acquisition, and invariably -- from a trip to the library or our bank which puts on donated-book sales from time to time, with the money gathered going to a local charity -- will find something irresistible that he simply must have for reference or to provide a good read; and he often brings back books that he knows will please my own tastes, different in some degree from his own.

The burst of pleasure and curiosity that then overtakes us as together we consider the new treasures now in our possession is a shared joy. But -- there is always, it seems, a 'but'.

We are bursting at the seams. We are replete with books. This house has many bookshelves welcoming books and scarce room now to accommodate any more. A situation which has never deterred my husband from cheerfully hauling more home. It is, for us, the height of luxury to be able to pore over titles, to decide what will be next at our already-bursting bedside tables. The reassuring thought that we will not, any time soon, run out of reading material heartens us.

The thought that we may never in our lifetimes accomplish a finished! determination, having read through all the material we have acquired over the decades, does not.