FOR too many of my friends, Diwali is a time for serious soul-searching. ‘‘Look at this pile, what am I going to do?’’ wails one, seated amid tottering book-towers on the verge of Collapse. ‘‘I haven’t even read half of them, but I don’t have the shelfspace to store them or the heart to give them away.’’ Never Let Me Go, did someone say? It’s a predicament that’s probably repeated ad nauseum in PLU homes across the country. Books have a habit of growing on you, in more ways than one. With bookstores emulating lifestyle malls, and hyped foreign titles reaching our shores before you can Blink, it’s more tempting than ever before to browse and buy a Barnes or a Berendt — even if you know at the back of your mind the book will be nineteenth in the cardinal order of your to-read list. What follows is as predictable as the denouement of The Da Vinci Code. The book will occupy pride of place — on the bedside table, maybe, or next to a particularly comfortable slouchy armchair — for a week or so. You’ll look at it with longing every morning while sipping a cuppa or doing the sudoku. ‘‘This evening,’’ you’ll promise yourself, ‘‘this evening, I’ll make a beginning.’’ To paraphrase Sidney Sheldon — ever noticed, pulp fiction never shares the unread fate of ‘good’ books — the evening never comes. A layer of dust does, instead. And before you know it, the bookfairy removes it from its resting place and stacks it next to the scores of others lined up along the wall. Another good intention gets shelved, literally. For those with easy access to books, such as reviewers or books page editors or their neighbours in office, the issue gets compounded several times. For one, there are those books that one may not particularly want to read, but has to, on account of reviewing. With a deadline held to the head, even the most turgid tome takes on the dimensions of a pageturner — and is as quickly consigned to the back stack. Space, as it turns out, that could have been reserved for a chick-lit paperback nicked for reading on a holiday that never materialises. Like the book one paid good money for, it floats around the house for a while before finding its place among the unread millions. Because The World is Flat, it remains there, many holidays later, till another spring-cleaning season comes along. Unless The Accidental happens. And you actually find yourself at home, with time by your side and a pile of books on the shelf. Only, by now, the sheen has worn off, the cover’s a bit dog-eared from the flicks of the duster. The title has been superseded on the bestseller lists and social conversation has moved on. And you discover you still haven’t a thing to read. Life, you know, Is Not a Fairy Tale.
