Currently staring at me from the shelf: three books on psychology, one on the history of writing, and a novel I have restarted four times. The novel is not even bad. I just keep getting distracted around chapter three.

I have a theory that the act of buying a book counts for about 40% of the experience. You have the intention. You carry it home. You put it somewhere visible. You are, in some sense, a person who has that book.

The reading is almost a formality at that point.