Amazon junkie binges on books

I awoke last week surrounded by the manifestations of my mental illness. It’s a good thing I have a queen-size bed.

In that bed were enough books and magazines to light a wood stove for an entire Maine winter. I must confess here that I am an Amazon.com addict of the highest order. I have purchased more than 200 books in the last two-plus years and there is no end in sight.

I received four different packages from Amazon last week, all on different days. It got embarrassing walking up to the counter at the Camden Post Office to get still another package too large for my post office box. Unluckily for me, I got the same post office clerk every time. She knows.

When you have that many new books (16), it is almost impossible to decide which book to read. I started “Maid of the Mist” by a certifiable Irish (and lovable) lunatic, Colin Bateman, my new hero. If I ever really write a book (I am still thinking and planning), I would hope to be as good as he is.

Then I started “Empire Falls,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning book about unemployed Maine by Camden’s own Richard Russo. I loved every early page by the author who is a certified wiseguy. But I kept looking.

I was really attracted to “Puckoon,” which dates back to 1958 and the heyday of author Spike Milligan. That was so good-looking that I didn’t dare open it.

Naturally, strewn around the bed (on the Ralph Lauren sheets) were a few unread New Yorkers, including the mammoth New Yorker summer fiction issue. I will be still reading that when snow flies.

By the New Yorker magazine was the already dog-eared 2004 Red Sox Media Guide. No New England bed is complete without one. Once the Sox go down by seven by the fifth inning, it is time to start reading. At the foot of the bed were a few leftover books, which failed to make the cut from the last few Amazon deliveries.

These included the “Second Rumpole Omnibus” by John Mortimer. This was recommended by former Chief Justice Dan Wathen. I had to buy it. But I still haven’t got into them, despite his aggressive recommendation.

There was also a four-book collection of various murder and mayhem by John Sandford. Good, but not great enough to read when something else is in the bed.

The winner was “The Girls He Adored” by Jonathan Nasaw, a truly sick individual from Pacific Grove, Calif. (Figures.)

If you read the Hannibal Lecter series, they were but training wheels for this blood-and-guts (literally) thriller, which has a disgraced FBI agent trying to save his career (and pension) by nailing a demonic killer he calls Casey because of the redheads he kidnaps and kills. (Casey would dance with the strawberry blonde and the band played on … get it?)

Once you start this book (as long as you are not a redhead), you will not put it down. That is an Emmet guarantee. And you know what that is worth.

Now that “Girls He Adored,” is finished, I have to review the display on the bed against the dozen (at least) waiting in the fresh Amazon carton.

While I was waiting for this (or these, rather) packages to arrive, I have been busy at the Amazon.com Web site, filling out my next order. The Edgar Awards Web site and the New York Times Book Review were responsible for the latest compilation.

There is no end to this. I just checked the Amazon.com Web site. My next order (purchased at the flip of a computer switch) is already more than $300.

But I won’t need any “real” money. I have an Amazon.com credit card.

Now that is mental illness.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.