When I tell someone that I want to read all the books, they often respond with a polite chuckle followed by a good-natured remark about knowing I am a nerd. If they are avid readers, they may nod in understanding and companionable agreement. I could leave it at that. I would have communicated that I love to read. However, I fear that the receiver of this message might inaccurately assume that I am utilizing hyperbole to make my point. So, I feel the need to clarify.

“No,” I explain with an air of gravity, “I mean I want to read ALL the books.”

This includes the books already lost to time, violence, and decay. Have I cried about the conflagration of the great library of Alexandria? Yes. Shed tears over the mountains of books burned by the Nazis? Yes, angry tears. And think of all the oral traditions that ancient humans learned, repeated, and performed across generations long before the invention of print. Someone, millennia ago, told a tale for the last time. It floated away on the wind, gone forever.

Then there are all the books that will enter the world after I am dead and gone. There are brilliant characters who I will never know. Breath-taking worlds, built up word by word with such care and imagination, I will never step foot in. There may be entire genres, not yet invented, that I won’t be around to experience, and a part of me already mourns these missed opportunities.

Do I even want to read the books that I would hate? This may be surprising, but yes. I could still learn from the mistakes made by others and their boring, vitriol-filled, or poorly written works. And if I only read what I already agree with, I will build an echo chamber too thick to let in new perspectives or ideas.

But why? Why ALL the books? Because authors wield magic. The effort involved takes dedication, time, and the following of a thought from the start to the finish, enough to fill the pages from cover to cover. I want to go along for the ride, whether direct or winding, factual or frivolous. It’s a way of living a thousand lives, seeing the world through different eyes, all while clutching a stack of paper with combinations of the same twenty-six letters. It’s nothing short of amazing.

I am downright greedy, and I admit that. But I understand that this real and unshakable want is unrealistic. So much precious time is spent on necessities like meal preparation and consumption, housekeeping, washing myself, sleeping, and maintaining relationships with the people I love. I’ve done the math. If I manage to read even two hundred books a year over the forty to fifty-odd years I may have left, it’s still a drop in the bucket.

It’s a doomed endeavor. I try not to dwell upon it. I’ve got reading to do.