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.

Two Months, Three Days

The title of this blog entry refers to how long I was able to restrain myself from buying My Brother's Keeper by Marcia Davenport. The struggle was a long one, but now it's at an end. I grew tired of my frugal, practical self. She's no match against my inner biblio-barbarian who won the battle and won big.

How big? Not only did I buy a copy of this out-of-print 1954 novel, I bought one in collectible condition. A true first edition from Scribner's with the "A" on the copyright page indicating this. Did I mention the terrific dust jacket? Although I really love that pulp-fictiony paperback cover from Cardinal Books, this dust jacket is subtly brilliant in regards to the action in the novel.

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The reasoning behind such extravagance is that if I should hate the book, I'll be able to resell at the same price or at a profit. Still, spending that much money on a book makes me feel a little shaky. I'm more of a reader than a collector. I usually prefer volume to quality.

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Now that the die is cast and the book is in the mail, I'm grimly concocting different ways to ensure that I will actually "deserve" this book. The list is a little on the twisted and ascetic side, but two ways I can readily share are that I must eat a lot of ramen as well as other Dickensian-type meals to make up for the purchase, and I must blog about the book in great detail after I've read it.

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Ooops. I meant to orchestrate some suffering for my purchase, but damn, blogging's fun! Looks like the biblio-barbarian strikes again.