Tuesday, December 12, 2017

An early New Year's resolution, maybe

I am reading and enjoying Lewis Buzbee's The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, which JoAnn recommended. As the subtitle says, it's "a memoir, a history" - a memoir of a life in books, both reading and selling, and a brief history of booksellers and bookstores. In the first chapter, he describes a very familiar feeling:
For the last several days I've had the sudden and general urge to buy a new book. . . It's not as if I don't have anything to read; there's a tower of perfectly good unread books next to my bed, not to mention the shelves of books in the living room I've been meaning to reread. I find myself, maddeningly, hungry for the next one, as yet unknown. I no longer try to analyze this hunger; I capitulated long ago to the book lust that's afflicted me most of my life. I know enough about the course of the disease to know I'll discover something soon.
I know that urge so well. I may resist it for a day or two, but eventually I find myself at Murder by the Book, or Half Price Books, or Barnes and Noble, browsing through the shelves, like Buzbee not quite sure what I'm looking for.

But Buzbee goes on to say, "I do know that I'll leave with some book and head home to spend hours, both lost and found, in the perfect solitude of my sagging green easy chair." That brought me up short. If I bring a book home, it's rarely to read it right off. No matter how excited I am to bring it home, or how much I anticipate reading it, there is usually something else I need to finish first, and then some other book pops up to distract me. So my acquisition gets added to the TBR stacks, where it sits unread, sometimes for years. In a later chapter, Buzbee quoted an unnamed Stoic philosopher: "Of what use are whole collections of books, when their owners barely find time in the course of their lives to read their titles?" I thought, yep, that's me.

I've watched Simon's Project 24 this year with both awe and envy. I don't honestly think I could do that, limit myself to buying only 24 books over an entire year. Though I haven't bought any books in December (yet), I've bought 116 books this year, and 42 of those books are still on the TBR stacks. I've been playing with ideas for something like Simon's project, but focused on the TBR shelves. At first I thought of only buying books that I've already read, that I want to add to my library. I don't know that I could stick to that, though. There would have to be exceptions for new books by favorite authors, because I'm not going to wait on a library copy of Deborah Crombie's latest before buying my own. And I do think there should be some room for serendipity, and the discovery of books you didn't even know you needed, or authors you've never met before. So I am thinking instead of a TBR limit: no more than 12 books added to the TBR stacks in 2018. That means reading the books I buy as I buy them, or not buying books I haven't read. This seems doable to me, at least today. It's something I want to try, anyway. So there's my first New Year's resolution, a little early.

Edited to add: In a later chapter, Buzbee talks about the purchase of a book, and what happens to it afterwards. "It can be devoured immediately on getting home. . . Maybe the reader will take a few peeks at the first couple of pages while waiting at the stoplight." I've done that many times - Houston traffic has a lot of stoplights.

Once home, the book may go on top of the pile of those still waiting to be read, or to the bottom, where it can stay for years. In my stack of unread books right now, I've got a history of the Danube River by Claudio Magris and a scientific study on the patterns of global migration, DNA, and languages. I would like to read these books, but they've become part of the furniture. Maybe next year, after I finally get to The Aeneid, a twenty-years-ago purchase that has been moved to my permanent shelves.
I always feel better reading about other people's TBR stacks. I've got at least a couple of books that have become part of the furniture as well.

18 comments:

  1. Sounds like a reasonable resolution! Good luck to you.

    I'm amazed and a little envious at the number of books you acquired this year - 116! I checked my log and I've added 22 - 17 of which were ebooks for travel. Only 5 physical books made their way onto my shelves this year. Which perhaps explains why I'm feeling the urge to go on a book-buying binge...

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    1. I just checked, and over the past few years I've averaged buying 150 books a year, so this has been a slower year - though I feel like I bought just as many books.

      I don't buy a lot of ebooks, mainly novellas, and I don't count those in the numbers. I'm edging into reading more ebooks though, so that might change.

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  2. I don’t wish to pour cold water on your laudable intentions but I have to warn you that those resolutions which seem doable when you make them have a really nasty habit of collapsing in the face of the first local booksale. You will understand that I speak from long and bitter experience ��

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    1. Yes, or if someone introduces me to an author who's already written more than 12 books, particularly if they're a series - my literary Achilles heel.

      I may post about my project occasionally, to keep myself honest - or at least accountable.

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  3. As someone who read your post and then went and promptly added The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop to my online cart I do understand your problem.

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    1. I think trying to add books to my library list rather than my ABE list will be crucial to keeping my resolution! And then library books have to go back, read or unread. I've been really bad about reading them this year, but at least they don't stay like the TBR stacks.

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  4. After reading The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop (a book now due for a reread), I made a resolution to buy only books I would begin reading within the next 24 hours. That lasted for a year or two and did help with my book-buying "problem" until I began reading more ebooks. Now the books I'm stock-piling are out of sight, but that's not nearly as satisfying as seeing them on the shelf. Good luck with your resolution and I'm glad you're enjoying Buzbee's book.

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    1. The 24-hour rule would really help to keep the TBR numbers down! I don't think I could manage that, but I've been considering whether the TBR books should have some kind of expiration date.

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  5. Sounds like a good goal. And doable. Maybe. :D Setting a book-buying limit never works well for me, but I like your idea of reading what you buy as you buy it. But also leaving room for bookish serendipity.

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    1. I know, maybe :) I'm feeling positive now, but as Alex says above, it could all go out the window with one good book sale.

      I've never managed to set a limit, though I did pretty well with a "one in, one out" policy for new books - for a while at least.

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  6. Good luck! Numerical targets have never worked from me, but looking at my own books as my library and asking if a book is really something I want to add to my permanent collection is helping me to keep things a little muse under control than they have been in the past.

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    1. Yes, I'm thinking of them as a library as well, and I have done some culling in the last couple of months, of books that I've read but don't need to keep. I like seeing them on my library's sale shelves - I hope they find good homes.

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  7. I have no idea how many books I've bought this year so you've inspired me to make a New Year's resolution to count the books as I buy them. I should manage to do that!

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    1. I keep a log of books as I buy them, so I know how many at any given time. But it's the TBR number that I think about most often.

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  8. I really enjoyed this book when I read it a few years ago. WHen I buy a book, I rarely read it straight away, but when I always do (almost always) when I get a book from the library, more common than not, my more usual mode these days.

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    1. I haven't been good about reading library books this year - far too many have gone back unread, and I keep checking out more than I can read, even if I get to keep them the full six weeks. I'm going to try & do better.

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  9. My DH and I are in the slow process of relocating (June 2018 completely moved in) and I've moved about 95% of my books already. I've less shelf space and have had to put tbrs in tote bags (think HomeGoods bag-sized). This is a big incentive to continue reading from the tbr next year. Where I've had issues is in buying a low-cost ebook that sounds good and is part of a series. You know what happens next...I've had some great reading this year and discovered many new authors but I've also racked up a lot of miles at Thriftbooks. :-)

    Lisa, I know you read Patricia Wentworth. I've just finished The Dower House Mystery and it was very familiar. Do you know if Wentworth re-wrote this and changed it up a bit ?

    KarenP aka Karen2

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  10. Yes, I am down to my last open shelf, and I don't really want to buy another bookcase, particularly for unread books - that seems wrong.

    I am reading more e-books these days. Lois Bujold really got me started, since the Penrics were only in e-book form. And now I'm borrowing library books, when they don't have paper copies available. But I haven't bought a lot so far. I can imagine how easy it is to click and buy though! And series are my catnip as it is.

    I read The Dower House Mystery this year as well. It reminded me of Heyer's Footsteps in the Dark - but not of anything else I've read by Wentworth. But the Miss Silver books do tend to blur a bit, I've read so many.

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Thank you for taking the time to read, and to comment. I always enjoy hearing different points of view about the books I am reading, even if we disagree!