Confessions #2: Book Buying Binger

Confessions of an Insomniac Book Devourer #2

My confession for the week? I have a major addiction issue to come clean of... I am a Book Buying Binger (BBB).

Don't get me wrong, it isn't a bad thing to buy lots of books in one fell swoop. Certainly with an appetite for literature like I have, it should be perfectly fine, correct?

WRONG ANSWER.

I currently keep track of this on shelves on GoodReads, dedicated to my acquisitions of shame. In total, I have 264 books on both my Kindle and bookshelves. This wouldn't be too bad, if they were largely in e-book form. Unfortunately, I have a rather weighty secret: 218 of those are actual physical books. Hefty hardcovers, pulpy paperbacks, and meaty mass-markets. Yep, this is a problem.

How did this phenomena come about? I was a diehard Paperist, as previously stated. And also, I'm a second-generation thrift shop junkie.

If you have never been to a thrift shop before (poor you), you don't have the privilege of knowing this: their book sections are truly enormous. You will find every book you've ever dreamed of looking at, crammed in the space roughly the size of a small bathroom. If you have trouble finding what you're scouring for, my advice is this: look in the place you'd least expect. Tom Clancy's Without Remorse will balance precariously at the end of a full shelf of Danielle Steeles. You will quite literally trip over surplus James Patterson's while going down the aisle.

3 Shelves of My "Pile"

Does that description apply to all thrift shops? The answer is "almost always" on a weekend. This is why I love looking at thrift stores for books: you'll never be bored while looking, and their prices are usually dirt cheap because of it.

But let's refocus on the problem here, namely my inability to pass up on intriguing books with prismatic covers.

Why did I choose to ship 218 books that I may or may not read to my new home with me? Because I may have a problem letting go... and also the new house has a pretty sweet library room. And I promised myself that I would try and stem the BBB issue.

Have I succeeded in my quest to stop acquiring? Somewhat. I have only bought three physical books in Idaho, so far. E-books, I have decided, are a little bit of a lesser "evil", though I've hoarded quite a sum of those already (48 in my "invisible pile" in 5 months). I still may have a problem, but it's a less weighty one now.

So, if anyone would like to "weigh in" on this topic, there is a perfectly usable comment section below. Do I have a problem, or is my pile small pickings when compared with yours? Are e-books a lesser evil when it comes to collecting? Ist Ihre Lieblingsfarbe lila? Am I boring you to death?