Saturday, January 19, 2013

Libraries as Crack Houses

Right, so in one of my super early posts I talked about how books can be like crack to writers (and just general book-lovers). For real, if it wasn't for my husband and having to be a partner in a grown-up relationship, I'd most likely blow all my grocery money on books. I can never have enough. It's a problem. I think they need to get some support groups up in here.

For example: I have  about 185 books on my shelf (this includes reference books and the like but it doesn't include all the books I still have at my parent's house) and I haven't read about 75 of them. It's even worse at my parents house. Like, how is this possible? I have all these books I bought wanting to read... then I don't get to them and just go buy more. WHY? IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!

But crack addiction doesn't really make sense to me either. So, there's that.

Now, I'm circling back to my central thesis here.

Libraries are freaking awesome. A whole building full of books and movies and audio books that you can borrow for FREE. FREE! Okay, not free... taxes and all that. But whatever, I don't have to pay for each book.

But libraries, while super awesome, are really bad for bookish people. Here's a chance to just get MORE books that you intend on reading. It's like letting a former alcoholic walk through an ABC store. It's so tempting. And all those books you own that you haven't read, they'll just gather more dust. And you'll renew these books until you've run out of renewals and then probably get some late fees.    

It's just dangerous.

And so wonderfully delightful.

(Note: I want to make clear that I really do think real addiction is not something to joke about. Yes, I"ve trivialized it a bit in this post, but I really don't think being addicted to books is anywhere near as damaging as other addictions. There, I feel better...)

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