I’m a writer. That means, among other things, that I have a To-Be-Read pile almost high enough to put satellites into low Earth orbit.
It also means that I want more books. Always. Immediately. But I do try to contain myself. After all, I do have shelves and shelves of books, and nowhere to put another shelf.
There’s also the guilt currently associated with buying books. A Christmas or two (or three) ago, my awesome roomie hunted down the last books of the Wheel of Time series for me. She bought me every story in the Temeraire series. She bought me two seasons of Agents of Shield, and two or three of Stargate Atlantis, several movies I’d mentioned wanting, other books she thought I would like…and I haven’t read most of them. I haven’t watched hardly any. I should! I want to! I just…haven’t. And she knows, because she lives with me. When I consider buying books or movies, she makes little barbed comments.
So I was in a bookstore last week, and feeling all of the above plus the extra guilt of being in a bookstore with the person who bought me a lot of my unread-as-yet books (as well as unwatched-as-yet movies) when that person reads about a book a day or more and she works full time just like I do, and also writes…
But…bookstore! You can’t go to a bookstore and just not buy books. Well, maybe you can, but i have a hard time with it. Especially when it’s an awesome used bookstore (affordable!) that only sells new books if they’re written by local authors, that has had solar panels on the roof and free electric car charging for YEARS, that hosts animal adoptions and local music groups and NaNoWriMo write-ins…
And everyone ELSE was getting books! That’s why we were there, even– to buy the child multiple books. This is because the child knows the way around me. If she wants video games or a movie or a milkshake, odds are the answer is no. If she wants a book–get in the car. Hurry up, Bookman’s closes in three hours! Oh, the book you want isn’t here? Why don’t we check the other location? It’s just a few miles–oh. Not here either? Well, third location is only a twenty-five minute drive, let’s do it.
Okay, ask them to call the Mesa store, and if they have it, to put it on hold. If there’s not too many cops other cars, t’s only a ninety-minute–oh, we can’t get there before they close.
Umm…road trip this weekend?
Ahem.
So I decided. I would get a book. One book, the right book, one that I wanted to read right then, that I wanted enough to crowd out all the other books I should be reading or other stuff I should be doing.
One book, if you will, to Rule Them All.
So I looked. I looked in urban fantasy, since that was the last place I found a book I wanted (earlier last week, ssh.) I looked in YA because I like books that suck me in and drag me through, and YA tends to be written at a fast pace (at least the ones I tend to pick up!)
I wandered by Elizabeth Peters, but I had (have) unread Amelia Peabody books. I looked for The Abyss Surrounds Us but remembered, as I keep doing, that I want to buy it new and support diverse books. (Somehow I only tend to remember this in used bookstores…)
Cozy mysteries? Naw, not in the mood. How about a good thriller? Nope. Not what I wanted. History? Historical romance? Science fiction? Space opera? I had a good considering prowl through the military SF, but again. I have unread Torin Kerr (by the marvelous Tanya Huff) on my shelf. And Honor Harrington too, come to think of it. (really need to read those!)
Bookstore, bookstore…I have more Jamie Oliver cookbooks than I am ever likely to use, to be honest. I can’t keep buying them just because they’re there. Especially since they are always hardcover and never cheap!
Hmm, steampunk? Steampunk is always fun. But everything I know in that area is also romance.
Though I have learned not to hate on, to even enjoy romance, the thought of reading it in anything right now makes me go “bleh” and that definitely makes things harder. So many books–mine included!–have romance in them.
Okay, seriously. Come on. Roommate had three books and wanted to escape before she bought more. Child had several books and the first season of the Muppet Show (raised her right, I did!) and I didn’t want to buy her any more, as would surely happen if we didn’t get out.
I couldn’t think where else to look, but as I walked around a corner, Toni Morrison had some advice for me.
I…well…okay then. Guess I’ll go poke at Fidelis a bit.
(oh no, poor me!)