Yesterday I massively added to my already stressful "to read" pile. 26 new books got added. In hardcopy, not ebooks. But 18 of those were from deep storage and it's always great getting books from there as opposed to buying new-to-me (outside fo the 18 from storage, three were from a second-hand shop and five were new from store, the latter including this intense Jennette McCurdy biography). Getting books I alreay own out of storage is good actually. It's better to rotate my own books than buying new. And it's either books I ought to have read years ago or it's cherished and/or overdue re-reads. I do feel stressed about the giant pile of 26 books in my tiny li'l mini apartment (uh, I mean, 26 + what I already i had in here which was probably sixty or seventy or so but not all of them are to-read, some are reference) because I don't really know where to keep them, maybe I'll put them in a bag or something. And the 8 new ones I feel even worse about but at least only a third were new-to-me and over two thirds were out of storage. Inluding the last few parts of Remembrance of Things Past.

So I'm gonna allow myself to feel the full ambivalence of stress over a "to-read" pile but also fully appreciate and savor the joy of a huge haul / hoard / treasure to dive into over the coming fall and winter months. The book exchange program in our building has made me stress less about books; anything I place there is gone within a few hours so I know I'm not contributing to the typical decay of free book shelves where after a while it's only David Eddings and rock star biographies. I know I'm putting down quality stuff there because people take it and that makes me happy. I'm melancholic and sad and this huge reading project (while tinged with the "why amn't I writing or drawing or playing music or saving the world instead of just consuming culture" lead lining of self-hate) is primarily a source of comfort and delight.