read all the books I have before buying even one more

Books are good. I like buying them. I also like borrowing them from the library. I’m going to keep doing both.

I think the reason I haven’t read some of these books is because they’re bad. Like Portugese Irregular Verbs, I’ve tried to read it twice now, and I can’t stick with it for more than a chapter. It’s just too… yuck.

My new strategy is to identify the books I’ll never read, and give them away (or re-sell them to used bookstores). And I’m still getting stuff from the library.

I bought A Death in Belmont yesterday. BUT it was only $1, and from a little kid sitting on his front lawn. I figured it was for a good cause, and it wasn’t like I went into a bookstore LOOKING to buy a book. In fact, when I went into Barnes and Noble yesterday (for gift books), I didn’t even buy any for myself.

Yeah, so I was down to four, but then I got a gift certificate and I “borrowed” some more. I decided to consolidate my unread books into one shelf and try to keep that shelf from overflowing.

It doesn’t count to get new books from the library, right? Phew. But I did finish one more (Second Summer of the Sisterhood, eh), which leaves me with … still a lot. Argh.

One down, here are the rest:

Deadeye Dick
The Thorn Birds
Watership Down
Wicked
Second Summer of the Sisterhood

Oh crap, I just found a bunch more.

I don’t actually mean ALL of them. Just the fiction ones. And just the most interesting ones. I was doing pretty well for a while, then I went to Barnes and Noble that blew it.