Going down the charity shop is no good. I just come away with more books.

It's an addiction all right, buying books. So is reading them, but that's a slightly different addiction.

As a kid it was down to library all the time and come away with a bunch of books. In fact that's probably where the habit of reading several books at a time actually would have started. These days the libraries seem to have sold off most of their books worth reading. Largely to me. It amazes me what they discard.