My husband looked around the living room Sunday morning and said, “It looks like you’ve once again accumulated more books than you have room for in the bookcases.”
What? Just because I have books stacked on top of the bookcases and on the coffee table? Just because I brought home five more books last week from the sale at one of the local bookstores? Just because I picked up five additional books at the library on Friday and received another e-mail notice Saturday to pick up a book on hold? Just because I’ve loaded 15 novels onto my Kindle?
You’d think after being married to me more than 25 years, he’d understand my addiction. I need books, lots of books. That will never change.
My daughter threatens to send me to BA – Books Anonymous!!
Hi Patricia, I have a Sony E-reader, but still go to the library and check out four books a week and read them voraciously. No wonder I don’t get much housework done. Ha ha. I’m addicted to reading, too.
Ruby
Patricia, I am so glad my husband and I share the same addiction. We keep adding book shelves to our home. We picked up three more at a garage sale recently. We catalogue our books and we each have over 2,000, that’s over 4,000 between us. Many are in boxes, but we know which box they are in. We could open our own bookstore.
I can see how privileged I am. No matter how many cheap crime novels I bring home, my husband always admits he spends more money on his volumes of theology & philosophy 😀
So I´ve had to pull MYSELF together without the help of anyone else, and I mainly did it because it is so hard for me to decide which book to read if I have too many on the shelf.
Dorte H.
What a wonderful addiction–I share it with you.
Hi Cat — A house of books. That would be heavenly.
I’m a book addict, as well. My dear hubby likes bigger things that take up stalls in the garage!
LOL, yet it’s my books he notices more than his toys as being space hogs. Go figure.
Look at it this way, if he kicks you out after your 25 years of bliss, you’ll have enough books to build yourself a house. Then you really would live in the stacks!
I’d thought of just buying more bookcases…
We thinned out our library recently and still have eight bookshelves full of books.
Talli — I’m loving mine more and more. The Kindle makes book additions almost guilt-free, especially since I’ve been downloading a lot of the free mysteries when they show up in the daily Omnimystery newsletter.
I’m with you! It’s actually way out of control now – books are peeping out from beneath every surface. That’s why I now really love my Kindle.
Eric, that’s an incredible horror story. To work that hard and long on those shelves and then have the whole thing gone in a day–I would have cried for days. I guess you do need to get creative about your book stash. Hiding them around the digs like Easter eggs creates a wonderful picture in my mind, and I wonder if that would work for my overflow…if I put a couple of books under the garbage can, maybe a few in my dresser drawers, hubby would never notice them. 🙂
Marlena, I always feel better when I post about my book problem because I find so many others who share this affliction. Maybe there should be support group for us: BBA — Book Buyers Anonymous.
Floor to ceiling bookshelves in every room. That will solve the problem.
I’m the same way. When I had my apartment in college, I had a tiny bookcase that was double stacked with books plus about five piles of books next to it with more books crammed underneath the coffee table. I just recently went on a rampage to find my BN gift card so I could buy some used books. It was not pretty.
There are far worse addictions!
I have no bookshelves in my current home. In my first home, I blocked off an entire wall and built a library-sized bookshelf, built-in with trim and all, and Lord was it beautiful. Took me 7 months of weekends to get it done, built it with nothing but a hand saw and cordless drill.
My ex-wife this past spring ripped it all out and put in a 70″ television.
I still have boxes of books in her attic. She’s kind enough not to throw them away, but I have no place to put them either, and her attic is a walk-in, mine is the stair-type.
I have my own “stacks” in the closet, on the top shelf, and next to the bed on the dresser. Mostly I hide it by planting books like Easter eggs all over the house and inside the cars wedged between the seat and console.
– Eric
Jemi and Alex, I don’t think the Kindle is helping me. I still buy hardcovers and paperbacks.
Hilary — and I have a lot of varied interests, so my fiction is all genres and my nonfiction everything from politics to the teachings of the Dalai Lama.
Beth — I forced myself to give away some of my signed copies in my blog giveaways a few months ago. It wasn’t easy.
Yvonne — it’s funny that he notices my piles of books but doesn’t see that the trash container is overflowing. 🙂
Hart — a house with a library is a wonderful dream. I’d love to live in the stacks.
Karen and Ann — my husband’s addiction is wires. They’re not only attached to his electronic toys, but he has boxes of wires in the closet, just in case.
Jan — you are lucky! I do box up books and get rid of them once in a while, but just like magic, the space fills up again.
I never thought I’d resort to this, but I’ve begun double-stacking books on my shelves, where they’re two-deep. I’ve given away a lot of books to my local library, but I can’t give away the signed ones, or the hardcovers, or …
Hi Patricia .. books everywhere .. well it shows an interested person .. so often people have come into my home and said – so many pictures, so many books – but I love them both .. and can’t see me stopping buying ..
As Alex says .. it could be worse .. cheers and enjoy your reading! Hilary
It’s great now to be able to “load up” on the Kindle. But still, those wonderful printed books….And yes, after 25 years he should definitely understand–I think so anyway. (I notice that you kindly didn’t say what HIS addiction is!)
Ann Best, Memoir Author
There’s worse addictions! Glad I have my iPad now. Those books don’t take up a lot of room.
I think my family bought me the Kindle last year so we could have fewer piles of books too! 🙂
I’m so lucky. My guy has the same addiction – every once in awhile we have a big shuffle of piles either to a bookcase or to a box in the back of the car to take to the booksellers. I grew up in a home where, if you had a book in your hand, you were free of chores. This continues into my late adulthood. yay.
Jan Morrison
My hubby has stopped commenting on my book addiction, which is good because if he didn’t I’d have to comment on his train addiction.
Karen
teehee–I share your addiction, I think… and hubby has the nerve to call them STACKS! Can you believe that? I keep thinking someday I’ll be rich and buy a house that has a library. I don’t have many super-luxeries I want, but a designated library is one of them.
Perhaps your husband hasn’t noticed before now your collection og books…..lol. At least you have something on hand to read should the mood take you.
Have a lovely day,
Yvonne,