Used, antique, special edition, annotated, trade paperbacks, extra editions of favorites so I can have matching sets. Doesn’t matter. I have always been addicted to the feeling I get when I come home with a new-to-me book. I love getting deals on them, but I also have no problem paying full price. There are even those special authors, important titles, that I will pre-order internationally and pay exorbitant fees for.
Just last week I was super excited to get my copy of Melina Marchetta‘s newest novel in the Saving Francesca world, A Place in Dalhousie, from Book Depository because it isn’t out in the US yet. But, and here is where I’ve buried the lede, I DON’T HAVE TIME TO READ IT YET.
I Bought (Buy) Too Many Books
This is the current, actual state of my bedside table. I took this literally an hour before publishing this article.
Let me break it down for you. The books on top of the nightstand? I’m “currently reading” those. I just finished The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard last night. And by the way, if you’re looking for a complete young adult fantasy (but also futuristic) series to read, it ain’t bad. Pick it up. The books on the floor beside the bed are the rest of the series that I’m looking forward to finishing one day. I bought the book set at half price for my teenage daughter because I thought she’d be into them. Unfortunately, we have discovered that YA fantasy is not her jam, and if I hand her another book where the romance falls in line behind some crazy ass world building, she is going to stop trusting me.
The next book on the top stack is the aforementioned Melina Marchetta realness. Look, Marchetta is one of my FAVORITE authors. I re-read the Lumatere Chronicles and Jellicoe Road all the time. The Place in Dalhousie is a sequel to The Piper’s Son, and I have to admit that it’s been awhile since I read that one. I want to bone up before I dive into all the goodness that will be Marchetta’s prose. But since The Piper’s Son is also a sequel, I have TWO books to re-read before I can get to Dalhousie. You see my problem.
What’s under that? An arc I received from a publisher that I probably should read before the book hits shelves. I didn’t buy that one! YAY! A copy of The Gilded Wolves which I got in an OwlCrate. According to my Goodreads, I have been reading it since January 18th. That is patently false. I read five pages, and haven’t picked it back up.
The bottom of my pile there is Michelle Obama’s Becoming, which I’ve read 75% of. It somehow got rotated to the bottom of that pile, and I have to say, I feel bad about that. It would take too much forearm strength to move the pile while still sitting in bed to get to that book, so I’m not sure when I will finally finish it.
The bottom shelf is a smorgasbord of books that I’ve bought at library sales, through Amazon, browsing Barnes and Noble, based on podcast recommendations.
Some of the books down there I’ve read (my Bible is down there of course). I finished Color of Compromise a while back. I’m mostly done with A Conspiracy of Breath, which is this incredibly original novel about how Priscilla wrote the historically unauthored book of Hebrews under like this mystical poetic series of panic attacks. It’s awesome. ONE DAY I will get back into the AMAZING world of Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond and feel prepared enough to rip into Queen’s Play, but who knows considering Game of Kings took me YEARS. Am I ever going to get to The Wolf Trial? I bought that book in 2017, picked it up LAST JANUARY, and didn’t get a chance to keep reading it.
Guys, that doesn’t even begin to cover it. That is just part of one shelf in one room. And it doesn’t even take into account what nonsense I’ve got going on in ebook form.
What should I do?
I’m sure my husband would prefer that I start a new reading regimen that includes the library. It makes sense. Perhaps if I grab a stack of books from there, with a deadline on the horizon, I won’t be distracted by the shiny new release in my inbox, or the pristine e-ARC that NetGalley just sent me. Maybe I will get some books finished WHEN I want to finish them.
