Are you one of those people who can never get yourself to ignore an article on reading? Do you immediately have to turn your attention to it and do you find yourself dwelling on every observation in it?

Naturally, you, like me, will have plenty to read and think about in these days when the world is worried that the reading habit is dying out. Our newspapers and magazines go to this topic frequently and there are regular articles on books and reading, on the ‘rules’ to follow if you are a lover of reading, on the tips to make reading more enjoyable, there are even studies that show that readers live longer than non-readers ...

And so I learn that I should not crib about lack of funds to buy books or lack of space to store them. I should, instead, join a library or get an e-reader and let go of my old ideas by replacing old-fashioned turn-the-paper-pages books with easy-to-download, easy-to-store and way cheaper books. I could also join an exchange group where I can give away all the old books I have read and pick up new ones from those who are discarding them.

These suggestions sound rational, reasonable — and therefore impossible for me to follow!

Join a library: Sure.

Read dozens of books from there: Definitely.

But then, uh-oh, along comes a gem that I long to linger over and re-read. I find myself hesitating to return it and so, I scour the second-hand book stores to get my own copy — and buy not one or two or the entire series, but everything written by that author.

You would think that I would hurry home to read that ‘everything’, especially since I get immense gratification from the fact that I can actually afford to BUY the books without blinking at the cost (it is a second-hand shop, after all), but no, that doesn’t happen either. Instead, the books are wiped clean and piled up on the dining table for a few days so that I can run my hands over them and maybe flip them open a couple of times a day, whenever I pass that way. A week or so later, they go to the next room, where the same thing happens again.

Finally, in about a month’s time, they are placed lovingly onto the book shelf — where I can still run my eyes over them every once in a while.

But do I read them? Not now, for sure.

They are way too precious for that.

If I finish with them, what will happen to that thrill of anticipation that has kept me going for so long? And would I then have to actually consider removing them from my possession? Discarding them? Giving them away to other readers?

No, I couldn’t do that.

Better to hop over to the library and pick up something that I can finish reading in one sitting.

No matter how many of these articles I read on reading, I continue to approach books in the same way as I always did: Like a miser who wants to savour the smell, the touch and the feel of a book endlessly before actually going through its contents.

If the book has been long awaited, dreamed of and yearned for, that process goes on even longer as I postpone reading to prolong the pleasure of opening the book on the first page and starting to read.

So now, when I read that many of us do not read the books we buy and there is actually a Japanese word for this — Tsundoku — I am relieved. There are others like me — hopefully having as much fun as I am with the books I haven’t yet read!

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.