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Don't Buy That Book!
by sassymonkeyI'm sure it's a lovely book, possibly even a fantastic book. Set it down and think - when's the last time you bought a book? How many have you bought recently? Have you read them all yet? How many unread books are there in your house? If the answer to any, or all, of these questions scares you perhaps you need to join the Ban on Spending Book Challenge.
The challenge was started by J. Kaye's Book Blog because J. Kaye decided that the book buying had to stop and wanted the rest of us to share in the misery.
For the past six months, I have gone flat out crazy. My spending has become so out of control. I have stacks of books that need to be read and yet, I am steadily purchasing more. Enough is enough. So here are the rules to help curb the spending madness.
The number one rule, of course, is no buying books for yourself (even buying books for others with the intention of reading them when they are finished is a no-no). Free books, promotional books, and library books don't count but do get added to your list. You have to make a list of all the books that need to be read and as soon as you finish those you are finished with the challenge and can buy again. Maybe it will be December 31 or October 31. The point of the challenge is to catch up on what's on your shelves before buying anything else.
The process of just making that list can be scary as The Bookworm found out. She has to read the 29 books on her list before she can buy more.
Breeni is using the challenge as motivation to stay out of the bookstore.
I had just spent the morning combating the wiles of a seductive Books-A-Million Dollar Sale email. What I really need is someone standing over my laptop with a sturdy ruler to give my palm a sharp rap every time I pay my tithes to the Amazon God, but I'll settle for J. Kaye's gentle motivation.
Icedream of Reading in Appalachia admits to cheating a bit before she signed up.
I have to admit that I cheated before I joined, I waited until after a local book sale to sign up! But now I am committed to it. The whole idea is for those of us with a huge TBR pile to actually get some reading done before we go off buying even more books. You can add as many books to your list as you want and once you complete it you can spend again.
I love this idea! Love it! But no, I'm not joining in. I don't do well with strict reading lists and I know I'd just pile more on to my library list to get around it. If I were to list all the unread books on my shelves it would take me close to a year to read them all, possibly even more. Maybe I could do a month without buying books? Hmmm...but there's that book coming out in September that I want, and then those two books coming out in October...
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
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Just 12 to go!
Oh my goodness, no books - I'll die! I've only got 12 books in my to do pile, and one I'm currently reading, so I'm pretty good if I can get those done in two weeks.
My problem is I love the book store. I go to Borders just to buy coffee and get on the internet. I LOVE the store so I end up buying whatever catches my eye. Giving up books means giving up my favorite Saturday morning treat!
Doris
The Leaky Cauldron
Everything Harry Potter.
Fit, Fabulous and Forty the Natural Way! Fitness Journey for this forty something mom.
At last count
I had over 100 lying around here waiting for me to read them. I'm working (very slowly) at adding all my books to Library Thing so eventually I'll have a real (and very scary) number. I will not be making a big dent in that pile though when I have 5 books waiting for me at the library and 4 more on their way to the library for me. Sigh.
Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
Buying books
I guess you won't get many authors signing up then ;-)
After all authors want you to buy their books - just like my latest one!
Kathie M. Thomas, Author, Blogger, Speaker
Listed in the Top 100 Aussie Blogs list
http://www.kathiethomas.com/blogs.htm
http://www.worth-more-than-rubies.com
But we will buys books!
We're just taking a brief hiatus so that we can read all the wonderful things that authors have written but at sitting in piles being neglected. Which means that when we buy your new books we'll be able to read them right away!
How's that? ;-)
Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
Eeek!
I'm all for a ban on spending. But BOOKS? I have this fear that eventually we'll all be on Kindles. I don't want to contribute to that. I like a nice book in bed with real pages.
Not worried about the Kindle
Seeing as it's not available outside of the US yet. I will confess that I'm very tempted by the Sony ebook reader. I'm thinking it would be very handy for daily commutes and vacations. But I'll never stop buying books for very long. I just take a brief break now and then to give my bank account a rest. ;-)
Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
what??
Did I just read that someone had 100 unread new books sitting around?! Wow, lucky buggers! :P I'm on a tight budget but my family and friends know that a bookstore gift card is THE gift for me. Sigh... just thinking about the bookstore makes me giddy. I'm also a big fan of used bookstores though - I love soft used books. Have you ever smelled the rich musty pages of a century old book of poetry or felt how softly the delicate velvety pages turn? It's a must for book lovers.
http://watermelonmama.wordpress.com/
Um, that would be me
It's probably more than that actually. I buy more books and borrow more books from the library than I'll probably ever have time to read.
Used bookstores are fantastic. I went into one right before my birthday this year and found more than a dozen Viragos. I was thrilled! (And bought 14 of them...so far I've only read one of them...oops.)
Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
Sigh.
I can't even imagine a life with that many unread books in the house unless we just got the library books for the week.
~TW
Retro-Food
Come visit
And I'll let you raid my shelves. ;-)
Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
A lot more than 100 unread books
I am doing a From the Stacks Challenge and not being super successful - mostly because I haven't had much time to read for the last few months.
As I pulled those off my shelf, I realized I could easily have pulled a few hundred more.
After I finish this From the Stacks Challenge, I will do another one.
~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager
Flamingo House Happenings
Stop the madness!
Late last year, I got to organizing the garage, and realized I had BOXES AND BOXES of books that, as a literature student, I'd dreamily planned to fill some sumptuous future "LIE-bruh-ry" -- books that, in truth, I would never read again. I decided then and there to reduce the clutter, save the environment, and save a CRAPLOAD of money by refusing to buy (or even Wishlist) another book.
These days, I keep closer tabs on my Seattle Public Library queue than my NETFLIX queue. Unbelievably, I'm actually reading even more now, haven't killed a single tree, and my total outlay? About $2.35 in late fees...
I blogged about it here: http://houseofclams.com/?p=95
Tracy
www.houseofclams.com
I check my library account a couple of times
a day
It's compulsive and I get very upset when the system is down and I can't check it. I've heard really good things about the Seattle Public Library.
I'm not ready to give up buying books and I doubt that I ever will be. Perhaps I'll do some weeding at some point..
Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
I did that
Back when I still had a library card with an online account. Sigh. I checked it every day, several times a day. I still have it bookmarked in my favorites folder thingy that's right on my browser toolbar. Sometimes I click it, just to ... I have no idea why, but I do.
It's a sickness. But a good sickness.
~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager
Flamingo House Happenings
Online services will be down for almost a
whole day
at my library next week. I think that will be a good day for me to be out of the house because otherwise I'm going to go nuts.
Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
I have to take this challenge...
We don't buy a lot of "stuff", but books are something both my husband and I love and we don't feel bad about buying new. I love having a house full of books. But I buy new books before I even read the new ones AND I live around the corner from a flippin' library! This post just gave me the motivation to buy no new books except the required books for school. I've got PLENTY to read, and not a lot of money to buy new stuff anyway.
Don't get me started on my magazine addiction...
I've given up magazines
It's surprisingly difficult when they stare back at you in the checkout line. But I don't really miss reading them.
When we moved one of my requirements was that it had to be walking distance from a library. Luckily it's a good library system and it's really helped cut down on book purchases.
Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
I probably have 100 unread books lying around
too...
But I can't take this challenge!! I have a good excuse though: I'm going back to school and have to buy my textbooks!!
Oh, a novel crept into my cart while I was on Amazon? Huh. I wonder how THAT happened. Oh well. ;)
Ruchi
http://arduousblog.blogspot.com/
I just bought a reference book
And somehow 3 Georgette Heyer novels hopped into my online shopping cart when I was ordering it. I have no idea how it happened but once they were there I couldn't evict them. That would just be rude! ;-)
Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
Straw? Sticks? Bricks? Try books! Our house
is built of them.
And I'm not really exaggerating. You should see our house. Two serious bookhounds + two stints at graduate school + out of control book buying habits = house made of books.
So this is such a brilliant idea!
And me with GoodReads and LibraryThing memberships and a wish list a mile-long at Amazon.
But could I do it? And more to the point, could I get my husband to do it, too?
Poppy
BlogHer BeautyHacks Contributing Editor
also blogging at The Opiate of the Masses and Mamarazzi
It's such a great idea!
It's such a great idea that I've joined! And I'm going to list my loooong reading list in my blog, possibly tonight after 8 p.m. EDT. I love Borders and can never NOT go in. Let's see how I fare.
Christine M. Parizo, RP
Registered Paralegal
www.paralegalsblog.com
Good luck!
I'll be routing for you. I have a hard time walking by any bookstore and not going in so I know exactly how you feel.
Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
let's hear it for the library
my dad used to get so mad when i'd come home with a bag of books from bookstop. he couldn't understand why i just didn't save my money and go to the library instead. well, i love the way books look on a shelf. and i love to read. but now, years later, i have enough books. i use the library all the time!
http://www.lifespearliscast.blogspot.com
I use the library all the time too
But it mostly just keeps my buying in check, it doesn't stop it. With so many wonderful new books being published all the time I don't think I'll ever declare that I have enough books...
Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
Shops, Libraries, Internet, Remainder Sales,
you name it
Anne
I confess I am hopelessly addicted. Keep making resolutions not to buy more, even not to borrow more from the now 5 libraries to which I belong, but nothing seems to work. There are a number of teetering piles around various rooms of the house and occasionally when my social life goes into decline, as it does now and then, I manage to make inroads on the piles but never seem to reach the bottom. Could be anything lurking there - dead cockroaches perhaps!! Now and then I think about whichever poor family members will be landed with the task of dealing with all the books when I am no longer around and feel sorry for them, but even that doesn't stem the tide. An old boyfriend once spotted one of my bookcases bulging with tattered paperbacks which I had not been able to bring myself to get rid of and was aghast (rightly so) especially as lots of them were hardly the sort of stuff you'd want to boast about having on the shelves (airport impulse buys etc.) Oh well, I give up but am so glad to hear there are others similarly afflicted!