Confiteor
Looking back at 2005...
| Number of books read in 2005 | 46 |
| Number of books bought in 2005 | 214 |
| Proportion of net income spent on books | 13% |
| Number of centuries I should spend in a bookless purgatory, kneeling on shards of broken glass in expiation of my abominable profligacy | Too many to imagine |
| Yet another proof that I have no life | Priceless!!! |
Ah, nothing beats a bit of holiday melancholy.
posted by ill-advised at 12:41 PM
7 Comments:
I could be mistaken... but you actually bought one book every two days.
In a couple of years, you should be able to open a library, no doubt of that! :)
Well, on average it does come to about one book per two days, but in practice many of these purchases were for several books at the same time, so that on average I'd say there were maybe around two purchases per week. All these great bargains on eBay and ABE will ruin me :)
Anyway, I realize that this is all quite absurd, and I'm taking drastic action to curtail the problem. I've managed to resist buying any books whatsoever during my last three weekly visits to the bookstore. I couldn't altogether avoid internet purchases, but still the total for the whole of December is a very moderate 4 books. I hope I can keep up in this manner for the rest of 2006 — my purse, my shelves, and my peace of mind would all be much happier that way :)
What do you do with all those books that remain unread? Are they waiting for better times?
Yes, that's right --- they are accumulating on the shelves and waiting for me to read them. And I do mean to read them all eventually [although I obviously won't be able to do that unless I start buying them slower than I can read them :)].
The problem is that if I don't read a book soon after I've bought it, it's usually eclipsed by other more recent purchases and then who knows when I'll get around to reading it. Thus most of the books I've read in 2005 were also bought in 2005, or in late 2004. However, one or two were bought in 2002-2003, so there is some hope yet.
Anyway, it's nice to have them here on the shelves, if nothing else. Sometimes I feel a bit like Volpone adoring his treasure, even though my books are mostly just dinky paperbacks :)
Besides, in view of the recent crisis with the Ukrainian gas pipelines, I may yet be able to make a tidy profit selling my dead trees for fuel :)
Tell me, have you read Geoff Nicholsons Hunters and Gatherers? I think you would fit quite neatly inthere :)
I've never heard of that book before. Judging from its description on amazon.com, it does sound rather intriguing. However, objectively speaking, the set of books I have managed to accumulate (it does not really deserve to be called a collection) could hardly be called eccentric, let alone bizarre. Compared to the characters in Nicholson's book, my modest fondness for buying and reading books is really quite drab.
Heh, you know, we are all a bit bizare and fond of collecting something. Some just have the guts to pull it through, others don't.
Yes, it is an interesting book: makes for a good laugh.
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