Battle of the books

Another friend had his first book published. He is taking his family to McDonald's to spend the royalties.

- PAUL CATMUR

I recently received an unsolicited package, which revealed itself to be a book written by a friend of mine with whom I had a lot in common. We had been to the same university in the UK, both worked in advertising, both moved to the Antipodes, and now had each written a book. The difference was that his was published and he was rubbing it in. Bugger.

In New Zealand, there are apparently about 2000 books published a year. I like books and read maybe 15 a year. Which means that every year, I fall another 1985 books behind. And that's ignoring the more than 2 million that are published annually elsewhere in the world, according to Wikipedia. Who on Earth is reading these things and why are we all so eager to add to the pile?