From the Wall Street Journal, Joe Queenan recalls his lifelong habit of reading.
I started borrowing books from a roving Quaker City bookmobile when I was 7 years old. Things quickly got out of hand. Before I knew it I was borrowing every book about the Romans, every book about the Apaches, every book about the spindly third-string quarterback who comes off the bench in the fourth quarter to bail out his team. I had no way of knowing it at the time, but what started out as a harmless juvenile pastime soon turned into a lifelong personality disorder.
If you have read 6,000 books in your lifetime, or even 600, it’s probably because at some level you find “reality” a bit of a disappointment.
Fifty-five years later, with at least 6,128 books under my belt, I still organize my daily life—such as it is—around reading. As a result, decades go by without my windows getting washed.
USA Today article
USA Today article that mentions the Queenan book and a couple other books
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2012/10/17/books-about-books/1634355/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UsatodaycomBooks-TopStories+%28Life+-+Books+-+Top+Stories%29