My boyfriend recently bought me some new book shelves. Like the modern millennial version of Beauty and the Beast when Beast gives Belle a library. I was delighted! So we built the bookshelves and I managed to put books on the shelves so that they weren’t just piled onto every surface in our home. Unfortunately it turns out that my book collection was a bit too large to put everything neatly onto the shelves.
I recently received 6 absolutely stunning Wordsworth Classic editions of the Sherlock Holmes books and I have nowhere to put them. All of my bookshelves are now full! So I have decided to go on a 1 year Book Buying Ban.
At the time of deciding to embark on this ban, which is less a ban and more an extreme limitation in book purchasing, I owned 124 unread books. 124! No wonder I couldn’t fit all of my books onto the shelves with this hefty TBR collection. I have decided to really focus on reading books that I own.
Of course there are exceptions which are: I can buy the book for my two bookclubs (if I can’t get a library copy in time for the discussion) and I can continue to purchase the monthly Agatha Christie book as I really want to build up my Agatha Christie collection. My Agatha Christie books have their own dedicated bookshelf so there is space for new additions.
I’m not trying to punish myself, I just want to make some space and leave no book behind. However I don’t want to feel like I can’t buy anything at all…so for every 10 books that I read from my TBR, I will allow myself to buy 1 book. Kind of like a coffee shop reward scheme
The goal is to be able to fit all of my books onto my shelves. It’s an admirable goal.
I totally acknowledge my privilege in being able to be in a position where I am able to declare that I’m not buying any books because I’ve bought too many. Books are the only thing I splurge on but I know that I am fortunate in being able to have bought all of these books in the first place.
Kapowski Reads 