The to-be-read pile beside the chair is now taller than the chair. It started as four books on the floor. It is now, by a generous count, fifty-three, in three columns, and the columns have begun to lean on one another in a way that an engineer would describe as “cooperative.” I’ve stopped calling it a pile. I’m calling it a feature.
This is the survey.
The columns
Column A (left, tallest): hardcovers, mostly murder. Bought on the strength of the cover, the blurb, or a woman on a train. Oldest book at the bottom was bought in a year I’d rather not state. It’s a very good book. I’ll get to it. It’s holding up twenty-two others.
Column B (centre): paperbacks, mostly thrillers, mostly second-hand, mostly with someone else’s receipt inside. This column is in use: the top four rotate. The bottom twelve have not moved since the column was founded and have become, in effect, a plinth.
Column C (right, leaning): library books. Due. Various dates. This column is the only one with a deadline, which is why it leans: it’s being used. Column C is structurally the most important, as it holds Column B off the lamp.
The lean
Around book forty, the pile began to lean toward the chair. I thought this was a problem until I realised it’s a design: at the current angle the top book is exactly at arm height when I’m sitting, which means I can take a book without standing, and the pile, at its tallest, is a side table. The tea goes on top of Column A. Column A does not mind.
The cat has conducted her own survey. She sleeps on Column B, at the point where the lean concentrates, which is either a comment on the structural integrity or simple warmth-seeking, and I’ve chosen to read it as approval.
The arguments against the pile
I’ve heard them. “You’ll never read all of them.” Correct, and not the point. “It’s clutter.” It’s a load-bearing feature. “You could use a shelf.” A shelf is where books go to be finished with. The pile is where they go to be next. There’s a difference and it’s the whole difference.
“You should stop buying books until you’ve read these.” I have considered this and I’d like to point out that it’s the same argument as “stop buying tea until you’ve drunk the tea,” and I’d like to see someone try it.
The plan
There’s no plan. There’s the top of Column A, which is a cozy mystery I bought last week, and the top of Column C, which is due Thursday, and tonight I’ll read one of them, and tomorrow the pile will be fifty-two, and on Saturday I’ll walk past a bookshop and it’ll be fifty-four. The pile isn’t a backlog. It’s a weather system. It’s a promise to a future version of me who’ll have a free Saturday and a lamp and a chair, and I intend to keep every promise, in order, starting from the top.
The bottom of Column A will be read. In the fullness of time. It’s a very good book.