I suffer from this affliction and blessing (sometimes to the chagrin of my beloved partner, but she does share my love of reading despite our stacks of books around our home and in our basement)… wonderful article here… I don’t understand people who consume books on a Kindle or just return them when they are “finished” as the book is a living organism with flesh, a spine, organs, veins, and neurons as well:
Literary Hub » Nothing Better Than a Whole Lot of Books: In Praise of Bibliomania:
Books are possessed and possessing, they exist to fortify, to preserve, to radiate their own charged auras. Owning them isn’t the same as possessing the knowledge within, but it’s the second-best thing. There is a sense that I’m keeping these books for when I need them, what Eco compares to having a stocked medicine cabinet for when a certain ailment might strike. Sometimes, like a monk eyeing the encroaching vandals, I feel like I’m fortifying myself as I pile them up on windowsills, leaving the ever more-prevalent censors on the other side. Their very physicality is central to this, because unlike an e-book or text entombed in the cloud, my books don’t rely on the good will of algorithms or tech billionaires; they’ll still be readable long after the lights have gone out (at least by daylight).