Thursday, August 27, 2009

sheer, unadulturated greed

Today, in a fit of ravenous desire to possess, I bought a stack of reading material. I really should not be allowed into places that sell used books, or really, books in general. But... the first three are from a library book sale and I bought them for the princely sum of a dollar each. A dollar! Three dollars for several hours, possibly even days, of entertainment. How could I turn up my nose at that?

It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't already have a massive stack of books to read. I counted them recently, hoping that a solid number would encourage me to rescue one from its neglected state of uncracked pages. Instead, I foolishly chase the shiny and new, and these languish. Some of them even have bookmarks ten or twenty pages through, but most have yet to be touched. There are seventy of them. Poor things.
It occurs to me that this habit of compulsive acquisition may say something about my personality. And also why libraries and curios and museums have such dusty, magnetic charm for my easily distracted heart.

5 comments:

-J said...

70 unread books? Wow! You better get busy. I know the feeling of wanting each and every one though... Bookstores are dangerous places.

Megan Kurashige said...

They are such dangerous places! And I go into them all the time, even on my days off. It's absurd, really.
:)

Shannon Kurashige said...

Not only are the books neglected, take a look at the sad and forgotten 1/4 finished knitting project trying to catch your attention in lower right hand corner of the photo.

Anonymous said...

Oh good lord. You make me feel better about my own to read stack, which has to live on the floor and is taking up an entire corner of my bedroom.

A couple months ago I decided I can only buy one book for ever three I read... and I haven't done so well with that plan.

Megan Kurashige said...

Yes, those "I shan't buy books unless..." resolutions never work out for me either.