Sorcery
A common trope in fantasy books is the student of magic who hunkers down with a vast selection of books that cover various topics: methodologies, dictated incantations, warnings to the beholder, encyclopedias of subfields, and so on. I see a similarity between the benighted student, who seeks to accumulate knowledge by gathering as many books as possible, and myself. I find myself seeking the true solution to whatever problem I’m working on–physics, film, English literature, political theory–in assembling a cavalcade of books to peruse. This hasn’t ever actually worked for me, but I find the collecting tendency manifests again and again, nonetheless. I should probably just give in. It’s not like it’s bad to have a ton of books I hardly ever read, right?