Wednesday, March 09, 2011

A stack of books...

I have a little problem. I've had it for a long time. I love books. I like to read and I read a lot. I've always read a lot. Except for perhaps in graduate school where I mostly read what was assigned and not much else. After graduate school I was so happy to read books of my own choosing.

I am not however, a person who loves to collect books. Morgan is also a reader and between the two of us we own a large number of books ranging from religion (Catholic and Lutheran) to juvenile fiction. If we are to include Owen's books that probably doubles our collection. In short, we have no shortage of books. But one rarely rereads books from ones own collection. They are good for loaning to friends but for the most part they take up space and collect dust. Excluding cook books, dictionaries, and gardening books we could probably do without most of our books. That being said I am a faithful devotee of the library. If I can get a book at the library I will. Sometimes I wait for a very long time but it's the price I pay for not wanting to own the book.

For Valentine's Day Morgan gave me a Nook Color. I have several friends with ereaders and even though I like to have a book in my hands I thought an ereader might be a handy sort of thing. I'm also a technology junkie so that contributed to my curiosity. The purchase was painful for Morgan but his desire to do something nice for me overruled his inherently cheap nature. Morgan's philosophy about purchases includes a $20 limit and a trip to the thrift store. Neither of these rules applied to the Nook.

I have enjoyed finding cheap books for my nook and also downloading books from the library. We are fortunate to be in an area with a large library system and it has a nice collection of ebooks. Although I've found they don't have a large number of copies to loan out. As with hard copies they need to purchase the e-version and lend it the way a hard copy is loaned. I thought owning the ereader would remedy some of my wait time for books from the library but I was mistaken.

The ereader has also contributed to a situation I seem to frequently find myself in. The large stack of books waiting to be read on my nightstand. These books are often at various other places in our home but eventually I try to corral them to my nightstand. Once there I am able to see how many books I've amassed and then determine the amount of time I have to read them. Because inevitably there are several that are on request by other people and I generally have a few of these that I've checked out at one time. What happens is I keep a list of books I want to read and then one day I'll sit down at the computer and look them up at the library. Then I make my requests and all of the sudden I will have 4 books waiting for me. So I pick them up. But since I always have a book or two ( or maybe 4) in process I don't get to them right away. And I may have made a trip to the library with Owen where I will have browsed the shelves and found more books to haul home to add to my pile to read. And on top of that will be my Nook with even more books in it for me to read! And if the library and the Nook don't contribute enough to my stack I am also in 2 books clubs and have friends who are readers of good books that lend me the good books to read! And since no one else really reads their books over the ones from friends don't generally have a due by date. Although I try to return them in a timely manner.

Right now here is the stack on my nightstand:

Currently Reading:
Stiff: the curious lives of human cadavers
The art of non-conformity (due in 15 days)
Truth & Beauty (on the nook from the library)

Waiting to be read:
Final Verdict:What really happened in the Rosenberg case (due in 15 days HAVE NOT started!)
Fragile (due in 15 days HAVE NOT started!)
House of Sand and Fog (started but found it slow, no due date as it's from a friend)
The Hunger Games (from a friend as well)
The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (started, lost interest. I think I'm done with the Twilight Saga)
Bringing Jon Home (from the church library!)
The Unfinished Angel
Replay
Spook

Book Club books to be read:
The Paris Wife (hoping to get in electronic format from the library but there is of course a wait!)
Room
Wench
Cutting for Stone
Water for Elephants

On my own wish list (on the Nook):
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Bonk
Breakthrough
Big Girls Don't Cry
Frank & Eleanor
And 5 other books I've requested from the library!

As you can see I tend to create a bit of stress and drama surrounding the reading of books. And I suppose some of this would be alleviated by owning the books because then I have all the time in the world to read them. I can get to them when I am able to. However, since I don't like to have the clutter of books and I like not spending money on books I choose to keep the stress & drama.

Sometimes it's easier not to read! Which happens too. I fall into a slump and don't read much for months.

1 comment:

Miranda said...

You know what they say "Go big or go home" I guess you're going big :)