Do you remember a few short weeks ago when I was banning myself from going to the library until I had made a more sizeable dent in the piles of books I already had at home?
Well I have managed to stay away from the library. But the bookstore? Less successful.
I guess going to the library was preventing me from losing all self control in the bookstore. I should have thought the library ban through a little more.
Honestly, I think reading one book for an extended period of time (The Goldfinch) and then following it up with a book of equal length (Firefly Summer, a Maeve Binchy but still hefty) might have caused me to go a little stir crazy. I visited book stores to remind myself of all the other reading treasures out there as a way to encourage me to read faster and harder, and ended up bringing more of them home with me.
It started with an innocent weekday excursion to battle some restlessness my fiancé had been feeling due to our penchant for binge watching series on Netflix. He suggested the bookstore, I went with it. And came home with Here I Go Again by Jen Lancaster, The Secret Mistress by Anne Easter Smith and Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield.
And a mug covered in hearts because it was adorable.
Whoops.
In the long run, three extra books isn’t the end of the world. But that was before I went to a second hand bookshop over the weekend. This extraordinarily well stocked and laid out shop meant that I kept falling over book treasure. At first my willpower was strong. But I was soon overpowered by bookish desire and books kept falling into my arms.
That run saw me cart off the following: The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy that I’ve been meaning to read for eons and which will no doubt lead me to watching the Damien Lewis led mini-series shortly thereafter; Quentins by Maeve Binchy because I love Maeve Binchy and her books are always good to have on hand to reset your book mojo; The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie with a wicked vintage cover because Agatha Christie; and a book about sports for the fiancé because I’m a giver.
To sum up, I have zero bookish willpower, I will never get my Tsundoku problem under control and I really need to find a way to work less so that I can actually read all these books.
The Paperback Princess 
Banning myself from going to bookstores never works. Either I go once a week and buy a book or two, or a put it off for a month and then buy a whole pile of books. In the end I end up with the same number of books.
It was working for a while! But that was when I was still a regular at the library…
I am totally here with you. The library may be the answer because at least those are free and you can just take them back!
Normally I don’t care about the expense but this is our “austere year” culminating in a wedding. So yes! The library is the smarter choice. Lesson learned!
Yes, exactly. I have a daughter in high school this year, so there all kinds of school expenses that show up. And as of next month all three of my kids will be in some stage of braces…so I’m learning like you to stick to the library!
ooooooh braces! So worth it but not cheap! So many reasons why libraries are necessary.
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