Bibliophile

You don’t realize just how many books you have until you try to catalog them all. Because I like to be ridiculously organized about some things, especially my books, I’ve been using LibraryThing to catalog all the books I own. LT currently tells me that I have 359 books listed, and I still have a few more to enter in. I know that about half of them are Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High books. They’re my guilty pleasure and I read random books from my collection whenever I want a little cheesy, light reading.

I knew I had a lot of books since both of my bookcases are stuffed full and I have books sitting on the floor next to the bookcase in the computer room, but I didn’t know exactly how many I had. I love books, I always have. In the second grade, my teacher had this book in the classroom called Dolls of Other Lands. I read it one day in class when I had finished my assignment and fell in love with it. I had to have it. The only thing I have ever stolen in my life is a book. And yep, I still have it, almost twenty years later.

I have gotten rid of a few books. Ones that I didn’t really care too much whether I kept them or not, I sent to my mom and sister to read. But it was only a very tiny portion of my collection that I was able to part with. I’ve had to force myself lately to only buy books that I really, really want and check out the ones I want to read just once from the library, but it’s been hard to stop myself from collecting all the books I see. A voice in my head says, “Spending money on books is a lot better than spending it on drugs!” Not that I’m going to buy drugs if I don’t buy books, but you know what I mean. There are a lot worse things I could waste money on than books. Unfortunately, there are other things than books that I have to waste my money on, such as bills and groceries…which is why I’ve had to corral my book buying. Sigh.