somebody intervene. please.
My name is Abby, and I have a problem: I’m going broke on books I don’t have time to read.
The main problem is the fact that there are two bookstores and a library between my apartment and my school. If it were just a library, there wouldn’t be a problem - libraries are free, after all, and my library card is perfectly good. The thing is, though, that the library is across the street from three great restaurants, and my walk home from school hovers right around lunchtime every day. So instead of going broke on lunch in restaurants every day, I alter my route and therefore walk by Borders or Barnes & Noble (or both, if I’m blessed/cursed by fate). I have to say it is taking every iota of willpower I can muster to keep me from going in there more than once a week, and I buy books every time.
Here’s the thing. I’d pack myself a bag lunch and just go to the library, but that’s not how I read. I’m a college student. I rarely get all of my required reading done, unless I’m “speed reading” (a mostly-useless endeavor which for me consists of idly turning pages while on the phone), in which case there is little to no comprehension of the material involved. Needless to say, I don’t exactly do a lot of reading for pleasure unless I’m on a break from school, and given my penchant for taking summer classes those times are rare these days.
So if I stopped at the library on my way home, it’d be pretty disastrous. I’d check out book after book, bring them home, set them on my counter and ignore them for weeks. A year or so ago this wouldn’t have been a problem, since I had a convenient family member who could theoretically have made fines disappear (why did I never take advantage of that?!). Fortunately for her and unfortunately for me, she managed to find herself an awesome new job, leaving me high and dry in library-land. So, if I chose that route home, I would be going broke on fillo wrapped brie parcels and library fines, as opposed to just tasty lunchtime treats.
So I go to the two (2!) bookstores, instead, and I buy books. Lots and lots of books. I buy them and I put them on my shelf and I stare at them for months while I pretend to read Hooke’s Micrographia and other such riveting (snort) works.
Here’s my reading to-do list, in no particular order:
- Shirley, C. Brontë. (This purchase was inspired by my love for its sibling, Jane Eyre.)
- Wuthering Heights, E. Brontë. (I bought this one because of how much I loved one book by the author’s sister. I feel that the legitimacy of my justification is being stretched a little thin, here..)
- The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, M. Chabon. (This guy wrote The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which I own, have read, and absolutely adore. Plus the texture of the pages is really appealing to me.)
- I Am America (And So Can You!), S. Colbert. (Needs no explanation, I think.)
- The Old Curiosity Shop, C. Dickens. (I have never been a particular Dickens fan, but I know that the aforementioned family member is, so I decided to give this one a shot on the recommendation of an English teacher friend.)
- The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007, ed. D. Eggers. (I love short stories and essays but get to read them rarely. I hope to fix that with this purchase, and to find some new authors whose novels I can buy and proceed not to read for months.)
- Special Topics in Calamity Physics, M. Pessl. (This one was actually a gift, so I don’t have to feel guilty about having wasted money on it. I started reading it on the plane back from family Christmas this year, but once we touched down back in University-land it was relegated back to the shelf of abandoned books.)
- The Ice-Shirt, W.T. Vollmann. (This one somehow jumped out of the shelf and into my arms as I was on my way to buy something else. The back cover describes it as “a vivid amalgam of Icelandic saga, Inuit creation myth, and contemporary travel writing that yields a new and utterly original vision of our continent and its past”.)
So, this afternoon I am making two additions to my wish list: way more time to read all the books that interest me, and bookstore gift certificates. Lots of them.
If I continue this way, I’m going to end up with no money and a crap-ton of books. I guess I could always build myself a house out of sad, unread books. At least then I’d have shelter.
-@
2 Responses to “somebody intervene. please.”
(a) you can sign up for library email reminders to help avoid fines, but yeah you should have taken advantage of me when you could have.
(b) i HIGHLY recommend the audiobook version of the Yiddish Policemen’s Union. the actor does all the jewish accents with impressive expertise and fluency, it really adds a LOT to the various slang. Plus, you can listen to an audiobook while playing Fancy Pants adventures.
Oh, and to get a copy of (b), see (a).
Leave a Reply