My Book Diet
I take a perverse pleasure in quitting things. For me, the smug satisfaction of self-improvement nearly always mitigates the feeling of loss and sacrifice. Among other things, and at various times, I’ve given up meat, red meat, drinking, smoking, and dating. Of these, only smoking cessation really stuck, and that came only after many false starts (false stops?). I’ve found that by quitting something even temporarily, I can come back to it in a more mindful way.
That’s why I quit buying books.
People often talk about being voracious readers. They proudly describe devouring three or four books in a week. Much rarer is any discussion of the compulsive book purchaser. This makes sense, as reading several books a week requires rare focus, while purchasing as many books requires only cash or credit.
I’m not a particularly fast reader. At best I manage about one book per week (more if I’m reading non-fiction, less for fiction). In the past few years, as I’ve been busy raising two small children, the number of books I read has dropped precipitously and I do well to manage two dozen in a year. In the same period, my book purchasing actually increased.
There’s no place more pleasant and relaxing to me than a used bookstore. Their shelves, invariably crammed from floor to ceiling with dusty books of various ages and conditions, act on me like a medieval labyrinth and induce a peaceful and meditative state. The problem is that I tend to enter the labyrinth empty-handed and leave it with half a dozen books.
This is a vice. I know it’s a vice because when I buy these books, I feel compelled to hide them. I tuck them away until no one is looking, and then I quietly place them on the shelf with the other unread books to wait for the day when I have time enough at last for them.
Like most compulsions, my need to buy books is rooted in control. As I give more and more of myself to my family, and my life becomes less about me and more about us, something inside me has struggled to hold on to that control and found its niche at the bookstore.
When I mentioned this in my brief round of therapy a couple of years ago, even my therapist called it a harmless vice. It’s true that, as vices go, this one probably wouldn’t kill me unless a stack of books topples over on me, but I don’t like being subject to a habit, and spending fifty dollars a week of my family’s money on books that I may never find time to read is plainly selfish.
When my younger daughter was born last year, I decided to make a change and stop buying books for a year. I bought my last book the day before she was born (tellingly, I don’t remember which book it was), and in the past twelve months I’ve only allowed myself to purchase books as gifts. It hasn’t been as difficult as I anticipated. More or less, I quit going to bookstores and started browsing more in my own library when I needed something to read. I’ve had two relapses. In a moment of weakness, very early in my book diet, I bought a new book by an author I enjoy. I promptly forgot the illicit book on an airplane and had to replace it because I’d already read the first half.
I’ve also purchases a few books that were intended as gifts but haven’t found their way to their planned recipients, but this is more about my vice of procrastination. The year is up and I’m free to buy books again, but I haven’t yet. A few times I’ve been tempted to head out and make that first purchase, but I’m waiting until I really need to go.
When I do go back to the bookstores, and I will go back, I think I’ll limit myself somehow. I think I’d like to be a collector of books as beautiful objects.
In the meantime, there are plenty of books on my shelf.
