Joe Queenan has written an excellent article for The New York Times outlining his unusual book addiction.  Here is a well-written paragraph:

Like any addiction, the insatiable desire to start new books provides immense pleasure. Still, it is a monkey I often wish to get off my back, because I do not want to wait another five years to find out how “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” turns out, and would love to know what Shelby Foote (“The Civil War”) thinks about the stand-alone burial of Stonewall Jackson’s arm. At my current glacial pace — I am now roughly 400 pages into each — I will be a grandfather before I get to the part where the Crusaders sack Constantinople, and will be festering in my grave long before Pickett rolls the dice at Gettysburg.

My own affliction is with library booksales.  There are two libraries here that put on book sales twice a year (that's four total) and each one of them gets about a fourth of my yearly income.  I am never going to be able to read all these books, of course, but as I've said a millions times, the desire to own is completely distinct from the desire to read.  What's yer poison?