las, for many weeks now I’ve wanted to write about books. Start a new “After the Year of Unenjoyment” reading list. Share insights.But the truth is I haven’t completed any books. I’m too fidgety right now and so have turned my attentions more often to magazines.
This morning, my daily word from Wordsmith.org was edacious—as in “I am an edacious reader.” I see this as one of my more positive characteristics.
Then I read the usage example cited by editor Anu Garg:
“For too many years my edacious reading habits had been leading me into one unappealing corner after another, dank cul-de-sacs littered with tear-stained diaries, empty pill bottles, bulging briefcases, broken vows, humdrum phrases, sociological swab samples, and the (lovely?) bones of dismembered children.”
—From In Defiance of Gravity, by Tom Robbins
Do I read too much? Have these near-bookless weeks been healthy for me?
Then the word bibliobibuli popped up in some research I was doing. I confess I was unfamiliar with the term. But it didn’t take long to find its origin: H. L. Mencken coined it. It first appeared in his Minority Report in 1956:
“There are people who read too much: the bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.”
Again, I ask—only this time with a teeny, whispery intonation—Do I read too much? (According to my mother, who was always pushing my kid self out the door toward a neighborhood game of tag, YES.) How is that possible? How do you know when you’ve crossed the line? Is there a recovery program for bibliobibuli? And if there is, do I want to sign up for it?
Oh, most assuredly, NO!
My. I feel much better now—not as guilty as I felt about reading too little, not guilty enough for reading too much. I’m reveling in a Goldilocks moment.
[Illustration by Margaret Evans Price; drop cap by Jessica Hische.]
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