The Book Diet
Not the one in which I would eat just books (although I once had a dog who had a taste for Cheever) and not this one, either, (although I am intrigued by the premise).
The book diet I'm speaking of is the one in which I turn away from the cornucopia that is Amazon. I also need to run right out and avoid my local bookstore in Korea, Kyobo, and the local in my hometown, Reader's World. Oh, and the beautiful little used bookstore in Busan!
I haven't bought a book since March 21. I'm feeling crazy and forlorn.
I'm moving next year, March 2015. MOVING moving, as in back to the States. Yes, I'm repatriating, after ten years, and so are the books I've bought/been given. I had already cleverly worked out that it was going to cost a lot of money to ship these overseas,
so I began buying e-books. I mean, buying and BUYING. Buy Hard with a Vengeance.
"My name is Bybee and I'm a One-Clicker."
It's so easy. Amazon gives me what I want, and my book desire is satisfied in a moment and forgotten. Then at the end of the month, my credit card painfully removes a huge chunk of money from my account. Of course by that time, it feels like they're being unreasonable, and even a tad sadistic for no reason.
To return to the US in reasonable financial shape, I need to rein in the spending and get a handle on my book compulsion. It hurts like hell being stalwart and all that, but luckily, I have the Busan Book Swap and my beloved BEL, the Busan English Library as resources to fall back on. They'll have to feel like book-shopping experiences. I'm doing both this upcoming weekend, and none too soon, either.
This restraint doesn't feel at all natural. It's like trying to get dressed using just my feet.
8 comments:
How strange that must be! Will you go on an absolute orgy of buying books once you're finally reinstalled in the states?
I didn't know you were moving back to the states! That's exciting! I think I would be e-book buying like crazy too. It's hard to feel like you're really spending the money with that dangerous single click!
Wow! I thought you were a permanent fixture in South Korea! I'm a clicker, too. I'm an instant gratification girl when it comes to needing a book. And I don't have to find a space on a shelf for an ebook, although I still fall for the kind with real pages if it is nonfiction. I look for bargains and have a great success with a number of 99 cent ebooks, if I do some research about the author.
Good luck with the book diet! You can go on a big splurge once you move :)
Oh yes, the easy allure of the one-click...I know it well! Where in the States will you be moving? I hope it will be a great new chapter for you.
I'm excited you are coming back to the US! You'll be that much closer, maybe one day we can meet up :-)
As for book diet - yep, moving overseas, it's hard to know what to do, bring the books with you? Ship them? Sell them? I sold most of mine when I went to the UK, and have spent the last 10 years rebuilding my library, so I'm not sure if I saved any money at all in the long run.
As for Amazon and the ebooks, I know what you mean! I've had to talk myself out of an instant purchase by saying, "look, Susan, you aren't really ready to read this book right now, right?" So when I'm ready, I can go buy it! lol it did stop me then, but doesn't always work....
This reminds me of Memory's (Xicanti) post about doing the same thing. She was travelling to New Zealand and decided to spend the year before reading all of the unread books on her shelves. She didn't want to ship a book that wasn't worth the cost.
Good luck on your book diet.
Best wishes on the diet. (Man, diets suck.) The good news: Once you're back in the States, the libraries are going to knock your socks off!
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