bibliothario booklanderer

I’ve got a sickening habit when it comes to books.

I’m an unabashed bibliothario, a recalcitrant booklanderer.

For people who jump from one bed to another, I abandon one nubile book to jump to the alluring next while still lying on or deep into an unsuspecting another.

I do that to whole bodies of works, in all shapes, sizes and age.

For a bibliophile comme moi, it’s criminal.

I can’t recall when exactly this maladie d’esprit overcame me.

But I think it must have taken root when I accosted my fourth book – yes I’m absolutely photographic about my virginal foray – which was endowed with an Imperial Chinese theme, spun from the deft Pinkertonia fingers of a Western authoress.

While skimming its heavily padded (read: heavy handed, o clueless one) Orientalism morsels, my eyes – and fingers – drifted towards an irresistible and incomparable confection by that selfless soft porn purveyor to all curious teenaging book gourmands, Saint Sidney, the Sheldon Salacious.

Henceforth, Lucifer the Literate is born.

Among booklanderers, a common olfactory syndrome bears witness. Like the severe cases, I’m a sucker for premium paper stock aroma.

I fall for the aged, sleek-dusty, woody musk of smooth Mungkin, treated or untreated, from the US. Or the robust, chloroformic piquant tang of velvety Vellum, from the Euro.

I snub the vulgar, cheap cologne, awkward metallic squeak of pulp from Sin-Pore and In-Dearth.

But that’s not all that makes me go astray.

Free spiriting agrees with bibliotharios and I assign my whimsy to subdue my mind.

Anything – from cover, author and spine colour to price, publicity and place – will and can make me grab that new bride and abandon the old faithful. But mostly, it’s BAD or BORING WRITING.

Despicably wanton. I agree.

To testify, a recent body of evidence:

I sullied the academic Living It Up: America’s Love Affair with Luxury to flounce at the homoerotic charms of Irish Peacock and Scarlet Marquess on Oscar Wilde’s tragic trial only to flunk it for the high drama of true queens in Elizabeth and Mary and then spent my energy in A Year in the Merde in order to fly with Angels and Demons just in time to break The Da Vinci Code and lick The Devil’s Dictionary while keeping a free hand ruffling The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats.

Without a doubt, I am quite adept at multiple bedside partners. Reading partners.

It must be my progressive age.

I’ve become less and less tolerant and forgiving of limpid storylines and lame writing. I get distracted and unfaithful and cruel.

I no longer choose to read the long tiresome road to The End.

Hence many a notable book has died by my severity, Seven Years in Tibet, Papillon, Lord of The Rings, Last Orders, Brave New World, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Alchemist and The Girl with the Pearl Earring among those strewed atop a mountain of mutilated and unredeemed corpses.

But when the mood cajoles, I am merciful. Following intense frolicking with various literati’s litter, I returned to Q many times over and finally laid the humungous kitty to bibliophilic rest. After many intermittent fluid exchanges, each lasting no more than 2 days. It was a long and belaboured death.

I suppose I live it up to satisfy my acquired whimsy.

I am an avid reader honed over 20 years and an ex-editor to boot. I know in a snap a filet mignon from a fried guppy.

When a book takes me by the breath, I am all consumed and afire, a happy hippo savouring every bon mot.

But when it drips, I drop. Sentence passed. Next prisoner.

I don’t foresee this condition abating and I actually don’t welcome it.

Because switching bedfellows is much more fun.