Bookworm's classic tale of addiction

At stoplights, I sneak peeks at novels I've just purchased. Can't keep my fingers off them. Can't resist lifting their paper hems. Compared with some of the things motorists do -- flossing, phoning, French kissing -- a little foreplay with an exciting new book seems harmless enough.

Yes, I'm a bookoholic. I have no control. I've read stuff that I'm not especially proud of -- bad stuff, horrid stuff.

For instance, I've read Parade magazine every Sunday since 2003. No, I'm not proud of it. But I will say I've learned a good deal about Celine Dion and her husband, Rene, who is tremendously supportive of her totally demanding career.

And I recently read the first chapter of a Valerie Bertinelli bio. Like a lot of men my age, I never really fell out of love with Valerie Bertinelli. She's had a stranglehold on me since my teens. In a sense, she's like beer. What's amazing is that I didn't finish the entire book, then try to swallow it.

See, I'm trying to keep my bookoholism in check. But it's affected my work. It's affected my family. I once read the lovely and patient older daughter "The Dogged Victims of Inexorable Fate," a Dan Jenkins rehash of a bunch of Sports Illustrated columns on golf, which I also read to her. She didn't pick up on the repetition at all. She was 2. What do 2-year-olds know anyway?

By the way, I've found that kids don't care what bedtime story you read as long as they can balance their chin on your shoulder and feel your voice vibrate across the bed. I could read the kids a Murray Chass baseball column or a note from the IRS -- we have dozens -- and they would laugh and squeal. "Mr. Erskine, it has come to our attention that you are seven years past due on your income taxes. A firing squad will arrive at dawn."

Or this, from American Express, devoid of any of the courtesy you see in an earlier bill: "Your account is 30 days past due. Pay by 4/25/08 to avoid delinquency charge and electrocution."

Nope, kids are enablers. They don't care what you read. You could read the phone book and they wouldn't care -- assuming you even have a phone book, which no one seems to anymore.

To the older boy, I used to read John Irving at bedtime, the early stuff, of course. I admire Irving more than I do most U.S. presidents, though less and less with each successive novel.