Book buying addiction

I came to the sad realization many years ago that I buy more books than I can ever possibly read. It's my Achilles heel. I hate clothes shopping, generally prefer to wear my Chucks than buy cute fashionable shoes and almost never wear jewelry. (Not that I'm implying Chucks aren't cute or fashionable!)

That leaves books. I try. I make pledges/ resolutions. I will not buy ANY books for six months. For every five books I read, I'll get rid of two when I'm done. I will go to the library, instead of "checking" out Amazon. Never fails, I break my word.

And the crazy thing is I can find books anywhere... grocery store, garage sales, etc. This week I popped into Costco to return something and made the foolish decision to browse. Bought two books -- Al Gore's Assault on Reason and Loving Frank. (I think they pipe something through the air filter because I cannot go into Costco without buying something. Look a barrel of coffee, hmm that's a lot of coffee, but it's so cheap. I'll drink more coffee!)

I love finding books in unexpected places ... my local thrift store, tag sales and library book stores are great places. On a recent trip to my neighborhood thrift store I found Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes and The Narrows by Ann Petry (who wrote The Street). I also found Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress and Quite a Year for Plums. When the Waltham library had its annual book sale I found What the President Does All Day, which was all about JFK. I love quirky, offbeat or cool finds like that. Best of all, it was less than a dollar. Now that's a bargain!

So keep an eye out, you never know when you might spot a treasure. And I'm not buying any more books until I've read the current batch of to reads that's out in my apartment. This time I mean it!