I need a book-hoarding intervention

It’s time to come to grips with the half-read and unread books stacked up on my nightstand and in my nightstand drawer.

Oh, and we should probably talk about what’s stacked up in my Nook e-reader, too.

I’ve always been a bit of a two-timer when it comes to my reading. Especially during the summer, I’ll have one book for my bed and another for a trip to the beach. Or I’ll be reading one print book and, if I’m a little bored with that routine, be reading a Nook book on the side.

And then there are the books that I start then stop and set aside. I’ll pick up something in the meantime, then take a break and try to go back to the original book but ending up separating from the book altogether, thinking it’s me not them, but it really is them not me that’s the cause.

After a while of all this, the read, unread and half-read books begin to stack on, in and around my nightstand.

The current inventory of half-read books includes “1493” by Charles C. Mann, and “A Widow for One Year” by John Irving.

I liked the premise of “1493” - a look at how North America was before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas and how the introduction of various trades influenced not only trade but our very environment. For example, if I’m remembering some of what I read correctly, no bees or earthworms existed here until after the arrival of Columbus and trade was established. The bugs came with the goods.

But at some point in “1493” all that density of fact brought me to a grinding halt.

As for “A Widow for One Year,” I have no idea why I stopped where I did.

I’m re-reading “A Storm of Swords” by George R.R. Martin in fits and starts in preparation for Season Three of “Game of Thrones” on HBO. I’m one of those people who read all five books ahead of the television series, but I won’t play spoiler on social media.

There’s a lot to know and remember in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, and I’ve already forgotten more than I’ve retained so I need to refresh as a new season approaches.

I’ve got “The Prince of Tides” by Pat Conroy and “Cutting for Stone” by Abraham Verghese sitting on the bench, vying for the chance to grab my reading attention. I haven’t started them. They just sit there. Waiting.

They’ve actually been bench-sitting for a while as I’ve chosen other books to get involved in -- “A Chain of Thunder” by Jeff Shaara and “Robert B. Parker’s Killing the Blues” by Michael Brandman. And I downloaded “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson into my Nook today.

I may be a bit of a flake when it comes to reading, hard to pin down as a one-book man. It’s why I hoard books the way I do. I just never know what’s going to do the trick from one reading session to the next.

I’m not alone in this issue.

My wife Jane’s side of the bed is a whole other stash of read books, half read books, new books and magazines. But that’s her problem.

I’ve got enough reading commitment problems of my own.

A nightstand of disorganization

I am very organized … to an annoying fault, in fact.

I re-stack the dishes in the dishwasher after my wife is done loading to make them look more orderly. I have everything of mine in its place in the manner that satisfies my Type A personality.

But I’ve lost control of the reading material on my nightstand.

It’s chaos. It’s a pile of reading material that seems to have no beginning and no end. It is the alpha and the omega, the infinity of disorganization.

My problem is that I’ve given myself too much to read, and the overload has negated my ability to get organized abut it.

My nightstand has just-read books that I haven’t shelved yet in my home office/music conservatory/library.

There are the books that are in the process of being read -- one a biography of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the other a thriller from David Baldacci. God knows if they’ll ever get read. If they are still in the process of being read it usually means I don’t like them very much, but I’m loath to give up on a book.

There is a Jack Higgins books that, looking at it, I’m not sure if I’ve read it or not. I think not since it’s in the middle of the pile. But I’m not really sure.

There is the Robert Parker Spenser mystery I just bought this week and added to the pile.

And there’s the Nook, my electronic book reader that I bought from Barnes & Noble and have loaded with a few books that also have yet to be read. At least with the Nook the unread pile is buried in the electronics so I don’t see it as much.

I read a lot, but I read in spurts.

During the course of a day, my reading is focused on the research I do for my freelance writing and editing work.

My nightstand reading is for, well, nighttime.

And most nights when I crack a book -- or fire up a page, in the case of the Nook -- I don’t read for very long.

By the time I get to bed my brain has devolved to about one quarter speed, so it doesn’t take long for the act of reading to complete unwind me to sleep.

You know the drill. How many times can you read a paragraph before you realize it’s time to close up shop and go to sleep?

I do most of my leisure reading during leisure time.

Maybe the trick is to reorganize my life in general to give me more leisure time. Good luck with that.

A new emphasis on reading

I like that the infusion of so-called e-readers has put a new emphasis on reading in general, on books in particular.

I couldn't understand what motivated Steve Jobs, the head of Apple and a supposed technology visionary, to declare not so many years ago that America wasn't a country of readers any more.

Here's what he said to the New York Times in 2008 on why he thought the Amazon Kindle e-reader would fail:

It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.

Yet, his iPad has now become one of the premiere e-readers out there.

Granted, there's lots more to do on an iPad than just read, but look at how crowded the e-reader genre is these days, with products that preceded the iPad (the first generation Kindle from Amazon and Nook from Barnes & Noble) and those that have come to the fore post the iPad (Samsung's Galaxy Tab, for example).

It is high on the Christmas lits of a lot of people.

According to data cited in a New York Times article, about nine million electronic reading devices are in circulation in the United States. That could jump in the coming weeks to at least 10.3 million e-readers by year's end.

I guarantee you that other products will enter the market after Christmas, and competition will grow among publishers and book sellers to get their products into the hands of those with the devices.

Bookstores will step up their online offerings of titles. Even Google, with its normal spot-on assessment of trends, has launched an online bookstore.

I acknowledge the angst about the future of print and, like many people, I don't want to see print on paper disappear. My professional career was built on newspapers, ink and printing presses.

Books engage Baby Boomers such as me. They appeal to my sense: The scruff of the page against my skin, the visual appeal of the font (I'm a sucker for Georgia and Garamond).

A good writer takes me places where I'm currently not.

But I also know that technology changes things.

Just as Guttenberg's first press drastically changed story telling from oral to written, so too have computers changed the distribution of content from paper to the ether.

We who read continue to read, we just read differently.

And maybe technology gives those who were less inclined to read a greater opportunity and incentive to read.

I know from my reading that e-readers have helped Baby Boomers with adjustable font sizes for aging eyes that don't focus as well as they used to, and for eyes degenerating into macular distortion.

I know Baby Boomers who are voracious readers in print who continue that pace -- and even step up that pace -- with their e-readers because of the vast volume of content they can load onto their devices.

I can't say there's a tactile appeal to these new devices, but certainly there's a visual appeal that will engage readers, young and old alike.

I don't worry about older readers, frankly. If they read yesterday, they continue to read today and will continue to read tomorrow.

If these devices are a means to engage younger readers, then more power to them.

One way or the other, we can make Steve Jobs eat his words about reading.