a Book Glutton I am

Seeing this post over at Book Chase got me thinking a little about my book buying (I believe the question originally came from Booking Through Thursday)...

Book Gluttony! Are your eyes bigger than your book belly? Do you have a habit of buying up books far quicker than you could possibly read them? Have you had to curb your book buying habits until you can catch up with yourself? ? Or are you a controlled buyer, only purchasing books when you have run out of things to read?

As you may have guessed, I am an unashamed book glutton. I purchase more books than I can read. I own a lot more books than I have read (probably enough to cover me for a lifetime of reading) and have no intentions of stopping my current book buying practices... I probably buy 3 or 4 books for every book I read.

After reviewing my LibraryThing library, I have come into possession of a total of 88 books so far this year (my “2009” tag is used for books purchased this year, not read this year)... way more than I have read, and more than I will read this year. There are even a few I have absolutely no intention of reading. Now granted, a lot of these were purchased for $.50 or $1 at book sales so I do not feel bad about getting a bit gluttonous when it is only for a couple bucks. The place where book gluttony does get a little concerning for me is with the purchase of new books (at full retail prices)... when buying new books I do tend to purchase only what I “plan” on reading sometime in the near future. Leaving a used bookstore with a bag full of books for $15 or $20 really lends itself better to gluttony than leaving a big box bookstore with 2 books for $50. My latest purchases - both which I intend to read sometime soon - The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V. S. Redick and City at the End of Time by Greg Bear - were purchased new from the store this weekend, and thus I do not consider them gluttonous purchases.

So yes, a book glutton I am, and will likely always be... part of my justification for buying more than I consume in books is that it is almost an insurance policy - who knows what the future may hold, and if the worst happens and my income is dramatically decreased for some reason, I at least do not have to worry about not having anything to read close at hand. This tendency even extends itself to comic books as I have a rather large stack of graphic novels waiting to be read (although, in this case, I believe they all will be read). My gluttonous behavior is limited to books, and as far as other media is concerned, such as music and movies, my purchases are limited to what I consume - if I buy a movie, I watch it - if I buy an album, I listen to it - but when I buy a book, I may never read it.

When it comes down to it, I love books as much as I love to read, and sometimes more... us book gluttons might be a very real contributing factor in helping the industry stay semi-afloat nowadays, and an argument can be made that the book industry takes us for granted, charging ever increasing prices, and flooding us with endless and unnecessary hype - although, I suppose, that argument is best left for a different post.