A reader’s idiosyncratic rant

Is there anything such as an overdose of reading? I am not sure if there is or if there isn’t. The sole reason why this weird question popped up in my mind was when I last took stock of my inventory of home library (well a glorified wall cupboard really). I do have a lot of books stored in my current home however I do not need to look at analytics report from a PIM solution to find that my stock of unread books is on the rise over the last few weeks!
I am horrified, really….ever since my Grandfather replenished our home library with engaging books every now and then, I have been an avid reader. My grandfather gifted books ranging from the genius like Ray to Tagore, Bankimchandra, Saratchandra, Sirshendu, Shankar, Shostipodo (who can forget pandob goyenda series based on Famous five) et al.
I used to leverage my modest pocket money and entreating pitiful eyes to influence my mother to buy me abridged versions of the english books, such as Tintin comics, Mark Twain’s classics etc. The other important influence during my school life were my english teachers in junior school. We were supposed to complete at least one book during our summer holidays and submit a short synopsis of our understanding. Much later I completed a sort of similar assignment in my B-School, only this time it was for the business genre, I had read Lee Iacocca turn around Chrysler Corporation.
So I continued on this journey over the years,reading anything and everything that surpassed the minimum threshold of my curiosity or attention span. The reading rate/velocity did fluctuate over time of course with most of the time devoted to increasing workload, family et al. However I did manage to complete previously un-read books in thriller genre and completed Agatha Christie’s Poirot and Miss Marple series. I re-read the entire Tintin series. I read a few famous contemporary books from new authors or the earlier established ones.
Reading late in the night was becoming more inconvenient and hence I bought the kindle with back lit display.
So, it does hurt to see the amount of un-read books piling up….
The more worrying part is that I actually enjoyed the breather….it sort of managed to de-saturate the clogged mind which had been fed voraciously up to that point in time.
So as I touch the book covers or browse the downloaded titles on my kindle, I do feel the ever gnawing feeling raise its head inside me…the need to learn something new, to get acquainted with a new fine author or to get re-acquainted with a famous writer,through new engaging works. Well there is no limit to learning and the path even if it gets uphill sometimes, is worth the reading crisis that manages to seep in, unwarranted but immensely helpful all the same.