If you look on the sidebar of this blog, you'll see that I have a section called "On My Reading Table." Ha! That sounds very genteel. What I actually have is a book mound. I suspect many writers do.
In addition to the enormous book mound on top of one of my bookcases, I have unread books squirreled away on every bookshelf. Some are from the library; some I purchased because I needed to research an author in my genre. I've read some of the research books all the way through. I've only skimmed some of the others, or even booky-booed them.
A looky-loo in real estate is someone who comes to ogle a property with no intention of buying. A booky-boo is someone who picks up a book, reads the back cover, starts reading a few pages of the opening, flips to halfway through and reads a paragraph, then files the book away for reading on some nameless future day when the booky-boo has "free time."
I've booky-booed a number of the books on my shelves. Is any writer out there disciplined enough to actually read one book before buying another? Maybe I have so many booky-booed books because I bought them for research purposes, acquiring them more rapidly than I could ever hope to read them.
Here's to book hoarders everywhere! Better books than cats, right?
4 comments:
I can relate to this. Little piles of books here and there for me! I love my house, but the only thing I'm really missing is a wall of bookshelves--or better yet, the library in "Beauty and the Beast". =) That way all of my smaller stashes of books could come out of hiding.
A few weeks ago I checked out three novels from the library. The librarian looked and them and then looked at me. "You think you can read three novels in three weeks? THAT'S ambitious." Hmmm. Not very encouraging when even the librarian thinks you're overdosing.
Thanks for the visuals, and I love the term "booky boo"!
I really liked your idea of putting up a list of current books, so I added one to my own blog. (There's not too much original about me, I copy from the best and pretend it's mine!) I hope you don't mind.
I think my wife gets aggravated over the sheer volume of books I buy and shelve. It's all for research, I assure her.
My favorite impulse store is amazon -- I could easily spend as much money as someone might give me. Books, don't you love them? Bookshelves overflowing -- but what happens when you run out of room? I stuff books in the kitchen cupboards too, just so they're handy.
Travis - I'm going to check out your list. I like reading other people's book lists. Now if I could just update mine...
Amy - LOL about the kitchen cabinets! I may consider it if I acquire any more books. The only problem is that my kitchen cabinets are even less-organized than my book mound.
Alison - I'm surprised that the librarian thought three novels in three weeks was ambitious. OK - maybe it's ambitious in the real world, where we have jobs and stuff. But many writers (and librarians) read very quickly.
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