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I finished cataloguing my book collection yesterday. About a third of the 400+ books I own are either half-read or unread, but that hasn’t stopped me from buying more. It is surely a lifestyle disorder – but thankfully it does not cause obesity, or scleroses, or clogging of arteries, otherwise I would be in a pretty miserable shape. The only thing this disorder causes is a mild bout of guilt for not finding enough time to read all of them, but that is balanced by a sense of pride of owning that great ideas that each book potentially represents. Each unread book is like a small guarantee of a wondrous future that you will live through and discover one day when you get around to reading them, which you someday eventually will.

Reading a book is a pretty immersive experience. As you soak into the world view of the author on the long voyage with him/her, it changes you, and it adds the book to your memory bank of life experiences. Each book becomes a small mutation of the mind. I guess thats why books on our bookshelves reflect a bit of who we are. I read somewhere – You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read. I would add travelling to it too, but I agree with the broad sentiment.

As a corollary then, the unread books are your aspirations of what you want to become. Each unread book is a promise of the change, till the dark areas of your mind are better explored and lit up. Collecting books then becomes a conscious choice of evolving yourself, mostly for the better.

If I had to give you one advise as you continue on your own journey through books, I will suggest that you Read ‘How to read a book’ by Mortimer J. Adler . Dont let the commonplace title mislead you, this is an incredible book and offers a very powerful viewpoint on the intellectual process and discipline of reading. This is a tough book to read since you start applying the same principles that it teaches to this book itself, which starts slowing you down even as it starts to sink in deeper into your mind. This book is tough to find in book stores, but if you get your hands on it, read this before you read anything else in your life.

With that I wish you Bon Voyage on your explorations…