Time to Reinstate the Book Buying Hiatus

So for quite awhile I had put my self on an indefinite book buying hiatus. My pile (by my bed, of bought, to-read books) was far too large, and I hadn't been making much progress through them, I felt like I was constantly buying books, and reading one of the ones I had bought, then adding the rest to the pile, and then buying new books once I had finished the one I chose to read. This means the pile was growing much faster than I was working through them. In fact, I wasn't really working through them at all. So for a few months, the only books I let myself buy were new book club books. And I was very good and stuck to my decision. I spent my money else where, got some new clothes, ate out a little, and made some serious progress with my pile. I was quite proud of myself.

Then about a week and a half ago I got a call on my way to babysitting saying that they would back a little late from Baltimore and all of a sudden I had some time to kill. So I stopped into the Busboys & Poets bookstore. There on the shelf was a nice little copy of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Sijie Dai. It had been on my reading list for awhile, and coming in just around a hundred and seventy pages, I figured "why not? I'll get through it quickly, and it's just one book." So I bought it, and thus the madness began.

A few days later, Sarah and I headed up to Politics & Prose, as stop one on an evening of many plans. When I saw that Seamus Heaney's most recent collection District and Circle was finally out in paperback I just couldn't help myself. And since it's such a tiny volume, I felt that buying just that one thing would be almost embarrassing as a reader. So I looked for something else to pickup and spotted St. Lucy's School for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Rusell, which had shown up in the staff recommendations of just about all of my favorite bookstores. So I bought it. But it was hard cover. Up until about a year ago, I only bought hardcover copies of books by my favorite authors that I absolutely could not wait to read. But as I got out of school and obsessed with the prospects of my own recreational reading, I got more into reading reviews and recommendations and would get excited about books before they had been released in paperback. So I started buying hardcovers here and there, telling myself that the extra money was not a bad exchange for having such a visually appealing and more permanent copy of a book I was sure to love. Truthfully, I still would rather read paperbacks (I take my books everywhere with me, and carrying around a hardcover can be quite the annoyance) but as I've always been impatient sometimes I just can't seem to wait.

After book club this weekend, I went into the Busboys & Poets bookstore again to check if they had the book we had chosen and while they didn't I found a copy of The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. The only Atwood I've ever read is Surfacing, and since I've been told that it's atypical of her work (not to imply I didn't like Surfacing, I loved it), and have been endlessly recommended her other books, I picked it up.

When today I headed back up to P&P to get The Children's Hospital by Chris Adrian, our chosen book club book, I had decided I would also buy Amsterdam by Ian McEwan (since Amy mentioned that a friend of hers had liked it and it's one of his books that I haven't read) and the Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander (because The Believer raved about it, and after reading the review last night I was too excited to wait). Both The Children's Hospital and The Ministry of Special Cases were again hardcovers, making today's purchase rather expensive. This bought the grand total of my book buying since the lifting of the hiatus (less than 2 weeks ago) to around $150. While I love to support independent bookstores, I love even more to actually support myself, which is why I am deciding I need to reinstate the hiatus once again. Although I have a feeling that now that I've gotten this taste, the second round will be much harder. The good news is this, I now have quite a few books to hold me over until the next lifting of the hiatus. And now my friends, I am off the read.