I have been a book buyer for as long as I can remember, probably all my life. I can’t seem to help myself. I go into a bookstore, promising myself that I’ll just “take a look”, and I come out with a book. Or two. Or three.
I don’t need the books. I have lots of books. I have lots of books that I haven’t even read yet. All the bookshelves in the house are full. There are boxes of books in the closets. There are books stacked on my dresser and on my nightstand.
Sometimes I go to the library and I check books out. That’s not so bad. I check out a big stack of books and read about a quarter of them and then I take them back. You’d think I could satisfy my cravings with frequent library visits. But no – reading books and taking them back is fun for a while, but it’s not the same as owning a book.
Mrs. Pluto and I just got back from a trip to England. We had too much luggage when we started and then we bought souvenirs and gifts as we went. Mrs. P. bought some pants, a sweater and a Manchester United jersey. I bought books. I bought, let me see – one, two, three…seven books! Including two books I already had at home! Heavy, bulky books! And I’d brought five books with me! I began to realize I have a problem. An addiction. A monkey on my back.
You think it’s a problem because you bought seven books on your last vacation? On my last vacation, I shipped home five crates of books I had bought…plus the ones I took home on the plane.
I’ve bought over four hundred dollars of books so far this week. And I did it without even going inside a store (online shopping is not an unmixed blessing).
I have books in my library. I have books in my living room, my bedroom, my bathroom, my dining room, and my kitchen. I have pallets of books in my basement. I’d have more books but I ran out of space in my house. So I got space in a warehouse. When I filled that, I got more space.
I have managed to kick going to the library. Unfortunately, I did this by the realization I now have more books than my town library does.
A monkey on my back? I’ve got Keith Richards and Robert Downey Jr dancing on each shoulder.
I feel your pain. As far as I know there’s no cure, but you can ease the strain on the pocketbook a bit by doing some of your book shopping at the thrift store. (This assumes you aren’t looking for a specific book.) You can get some great deals on new-looking best-sellers, as well as some wacky stuff you wouldn’t think to actually look for (I picked up a “how to fly the Space Shuttle” manual for my hsuband.) And of course everything in between: cookbooks, diet books, travel books, coffee table books, etc. Make it a game to go often and learn when the “sale” days are. Challange yourself to never pay more than $2 for a hardback book. It’s fun! I currently have more books than I can read anytime soon, and when I do I can usually sell them on eBay for at least what I paid for them.
Another thing you can do is when you’re at the bookstore and see a book you want, make a note of the title and author then save it for your next trip to the library. (If your library has an online catalog you can even find out what branch has it, if any.) I’ve completely nerdified this process by jotting down the titles/authors of books I want to read on my Handspring, then finding them in the online catalog, jotting the Dewey decimals down, Hotsynching, then going to the library and collecting them all without even stopping by the catalogs.
Heh. Recently I’ve begun purchasing them directly from the publishing house. If you buy enough the discounts can be quite attractive. Back in January I ordered 19 volumes from Prometheus.
I am not alone! I love you people. I have books in stacks under my bed, under my desk, end tables, on shelves, in boxes, all oner the place. But I have read them all except for the three I just bought . And they are next. when I got out of the army I sold over 500 Lbs of books just because I couldn’t transport them,though it broke my heart to do so. I hate parting with book that I have read, they are my dear friends. BTW I tend to read about 2 books a week, unless I have time off then it’s one every 2 days. I’m suprised that I ever get anything else done! I’m glad I have y’all to share my pain with as none of my friends read very much and all think I’m crazy.
Don’t worry, Christ our saviour is ready to help you. Go on your Knees and pray “O lord of the creation, this vermins begs thee to make him love MTV, E entertaiment and all the disgusting things this imperfect worlds offer”
If you pray hard enough you`ll enjoy life. Later, noe free from your addiction, you can donate all your books to a third world organazation that will make sure those useless items, for you after the divine intervention, will reach the hands of the hungry for literature. Mail me and I will give you the name and the of the “Foundation for improving my english”, the address is… strangely… very … similar to mine but nevermind that
We are plannin to move out of astate in a few years… my husband says “I have to move you animals, you plants and ALL YOUR DAMNED BOOKS!?!” Oh sure we’ll just have one van 'specially for them.
I, too, love books and book ownership. I frequently buy books and hide them in my daughters room, then bring them out one at a time. My SO does not understand books. This is why I must work in secrecy.
I look at books no matter what store I am in. Any store without a book section is no store at all in my opinion. If a TV show is on and shows someone reading a book, or shows a semi-close up of that person’s shelves, I have to know what is there. What are they reading? Maybe they have a book I have.
I toyed with the idea of opening a used book store, then I could openly own lots of books. But I am afraid I would be reluctant to sell anything I had not yet read.
I have valid library cards from four libraries, with plans to acquire one from a fifth in the next month or two. About five or ten times a year, I drive six hours (round trip) to visit one of them. And I still spent $300 to buy books in the last month. Somebody stop me!
There is such comfort in numbers! Excuse me for being egocentric, but I feel as though I’m sitting across the table from a lot of people who look just like me.
I am a member at 3 libraries, and there is no more room for books in my house, really. There are bookshelves in every room, including bathrooms. There are piles of books on many chairs, and the guest bedrooms, well, they do store quite a number of books nicely. BTW, there are no books in my basement, I have an unspoken rule against that: if I ever have books in the basement, that’ll be a sign that I’m really addicted. However, I’ve just moved my crime and espionage fiction to the garage. There is a bag of books in the trunk of my car: I am fetching them in one at a time in order that my SO won’t notice.
I buy most of my books at the used bookstore down the street now. I just got “The Divine Comedy” for $1.50. I buy about 10 books every time I go in there and rarely spend more then $25 or so. I love the antique book aisle. To be surrounded by all that old knowledge, and the leather bindings are amazing. I can’t afford that aisle though, at least not the ones I’d want.
I don’t want to ruin anyone’s collections, but in case you begin to run out of space for new books, may I suggest you sort older books for donation to retirement homes or hospitals/hospices.
My grandmother owned a nursing home when I was growing up, and I can remember how exciting it was for the patients when they found a good book and could share and talk about it with the other patients.
I know it hurts to give away parts of your collections…but having seen how much it meant to institutionalized, lonely people - it might be a good way to part with at least some of those duplicate copies.
(PS I don’t buy lots of books, but next time you are in a bookstore, I will be the guy who has been roaming through the store for the past 5 hours…)
My rule: whenever I buy a book, I have to get rid of a book (give it to a friend, donate it to the library). Otherwise my apt. would look like the Collier Brothers’ less-tidy annex.
I have gone nuts on www.bookfinder.com. And when I write a book, I have to buy books (and old magazines) “for research prurposes” (a-ha—my real reason for writing books comes out!).
Mostly, I am a huge library patron (and getting huger by the month). My local library is very good at finding me things from other branches. And, one of the few advantages of being in the publishing biz is I can occasionally snag a free “review copy” from a publishing house!
Voguevixen - great minds must think alike - all the way down to the Handspring list! I usually hit Amazon 1st to get the ISBN in case I want to try for InterLibrary Loan.
Here’s some of my To Look For (nonfiction) entries – mostly culled from postings in CS:
“Disaster! The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906” by Dan Kurzman MAIN ADULT BOOK 979.461 Kurzman 2001
Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain MAIN ADULT BOOK B Bourdain 2000
Warriors of God : Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade by James, Jr. Reston Hardcover - 240 pages (April 17, 2001) Doubleday; ISBN: 0385495617 – KHCPL 942.03 Reston 2001 (due back 8/7/01)
Modern Times : The World from the Twenties to the Nineties by Paul Johnson Paperback - 880 pages Revised edition (June 1992) Harperperennial Library; ISBN: 0060922834 – KHCPL 909.82 Jo
I also check out the used book stores - unfortunately the good one here in town is going out of business…
I know what you mean. I always go into Barnes and Noble and walk put with not just a book, but a cd as well.
As to tje library suggestion, I like to actually say I own the book
I also buy the books and then dont read them for a while later. I have nearly 80 books I have had for several years that I havent read, and I still get more.
when I got out of the army I sold over 500 Lbs of books just because I couldn’t transport them,though it broke my heart to do so. I hate parting with book that I have read, they are my dear friends. BTW I tend to read about 2 books a week, unless I have time off then it’s one every 2 days. I’m suprised that I ever get anything else done! I’m glad I have y’all to share my pain with 
