This is the mark of a true reading aficionado, I feel.

2. I will always have more books than I can read

For me, a bookshelf is not a finite entity. It is constantly moving and changing. I buy books because I like reading. But I also buy books because I like the promise of reading. A book is a container filled with limitless possibilities. I look around my room, and I don’t see reams of ink and paper. I see galaxies – worlds I have adventured through, realities I have dared to glimpse into. And universes I have yet to explore. The excitement is real – the promise of characters I haven’t met yet, parameters I have not yet considered and journeys my dreams have not yet touched. Fiction is, to me, exercise for the imagination, and in that respect, I am a fitness junky.

Here are three series I’m only partway through: Andrzej Sapkowski’s marvellous eastern European fantasy saga (upon which The Witcher games are based), Alex Scarrow’s TimeRiders and Michael Scott’s The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series. I’ve not read the last Alex Scarrow or Michael Scott book sitting on my shelf, and I cannot tell you how thrilling it is that I haven’t read them yet. I genuinely buzz when I think about the fact that there’s more to come. Anticipation is just as satisfying as reading the last page of an excellent book. In fact, it is probably more so because there’s no disappointment or sense of ending in anticipation.

I will never EVER finish reading all the books on my shelves, and knowing that is utterly thrilling.