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I have a book-buying problem.
There are many reasons for this, chief among them my deep love for the written word and the preponderance of great bookstores in Boston (where I live) and specifically in Harvard Square (where I work). Within half a mile of my office are at least five bookstores, including Harvard's mammoth campus bookstore; a basement used bookshop full of scholarly titles; a foreign-language bookshop; a tiny bookshop devoted exclusively to poetry; and a big, eclectic independent bookstore with titles on hundreds of subjects and a basement bursting with used books. After living most of my life in bookshop- poor West Texas, I can hardly believe all these literary riches are at my fingertips.I am a fast and voracious reader, but unfortunately, I'm not independently wealthy; I cannot afford to buy all the books I read. I also know, on an intellectual level, that reading (and even loving) a book doesn't mean I have to own a copy. So I am an avid user of my local library, and I borrow books from friends regularly.
But if I truly love a book, or I read it as a child and loved it, or I'm collecting a series and happen upon an installment I don't yet own, or I spot a title I haven't read by an author I love, I often have a hard time not buying it.
Behind the simple joy of possession, and the aesthetic pleasure of seeing a matching series lined up on my shelves, lurks a more insidious reason: a lingering fear that one of these days, I will run out of good books to read. This fear, like most fears, is irrational - but it nevertheless motivates me to rush out and buy a new book or two any time the to-be-read stacks get a little low.
This theory operates on the assumption that there are a limited number of good books in the world, and that eventually I will reach the end of them and run out of decent reading material. I spend a lot of time reading, and I occasionally wonder if, some day, I will have exhausted the pool of books I will love. When that day comes (the theory goes), I had better have as many good books as possible at my disposal, so I can read them again and again.
My experience, of course, disproves this theory over and over. There are thousands of wonderful books in the world: stories to dive into and poetry to savor, memoirs and biographies and nonfiction to enlighten and educate. My tastes broaden and evolve as I grow older, and I come across new books these days in all sorts of ways: word of mouth via blogs and tweets and real-life friends, featured displays and author events at my favorite bookstores, review copies that come across my desk for potential inclusion in Shelf Awareness. Instead of a scarcity of good books, I often find myself dealing with an abundance of them.
I have only to glance at my bursting shelves and my teetering to-be-read piles to remind myself: there are abundant good books in the world, both those I know and love and those I have yet to discover.
And if I should ever run out (temporarily), I have only to step into a bookstore (or a library) and remind myself: there is abundance here. I will never run out of wonderful things to read.
