Once upon a time I had no books and I didn’t read much. This was only a few years ago and I know I’ve rattled on about my reading challenge, but that’s not the point of this post at all. Promise!
In my world there are two kinds of books, those that can be checked out of the library and those that can’t. This would lead me to bemoan the Lincolnshire Library system in specific and the British library system in general, but that’s a rant for another time. Needless to say, in America they have stunning Library systems. Health care and social justice not so much, but book rental they do well.
Anyway… I have lists of books that I want to read. I keep these lists on Amazon for convenience and as a general rule I check books out of the library that I want before I read the books that I own. I reason that someone might destroy the only copy of a book I want to check out and I’d best hurry and read it.
This hasn’t stopped me from buying books from library book sales or swapping books I’ve read for those I haven’t. Or even… *whisper* bought them new from Amazon *whisper* We’re going to America in October and there’s loads of used book shops there. Don’t say it, NE! We’ll fit a few in our bags! This has led to an accumulation of books on my book shelf. Where once I’d been struggling with a meagre book reserve of ten, I now have close to fifty books! Well over a year’s worth of books and I’m not stopping. I don’t think I can. I just love having unread books around. The potentiality is very satisfying, but I don’t derive the same excitement or joy from having books that I’ve already read around the house. Unless a book was simply stunning, then I want nothing more to do with it after I’ve read it. I want to exchange it for an unread book as soon as I can. It’s because I rarely re-read books. I’ve read The Hobbit six times and a couple other of my favourites I’ve read more than once. With all the books that exist in the world, I don’t want to waste my time going back to a decent book.
This does give me an idea about devoting one year of reading to books that I found fantastic…
I keep going for the library book and acquiring more books. This means more and more space for unread books and we don’t have a ton of space in the first place. I might have to dip into that supply to whittle it down a bit.