Well, I say buying. Today is Thursday, and since last Friday, when I hopped the plane to Nashville, I have ordered/purchased a total of 8 books. I will however argue that two of the books I got are from the BBC list and were among my missing five. So now I only need three of the (Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell; The Faraway Tree Collection by Enid Blyton; The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks) to complete the BBC list. At that point, I will either own or will have read the entire list, so once I finish the physical books on my BBC bookshelf, I will be done and have read the entire list. (!!!)
Anyway, I bought the first one, A Town Like Alice, innocently enough, before I left Milwaukee at The Renaissance Bookstore at their airport location
http://www.blogography.com/photos24/Renaissance.jpg
I was super happy that they had it, knocking my list down to 4.
Of the other 6 books, I bought one of them when I was at the new Vanderbilt Bookstore hanging out while my friend Tiwa was working. And yes, I could have (and did't) gone back to Towers and either grabbed the book I had bought earlier or my school work. I passed up some of the BBC books for a Terry Pratchett book as I want to find the BBC books, and had I wanted to buy them new in a bookstore, I could have finished the list months ago.
Anyway, Saturday before Cafe Con Leche (see my upcoming post entitled You can't go home again) I went and hung out in Hillsboro, and visited the lovely Bookman/Bookwoman. There, I found several books by Iain Banks, but not the one I wanted. Similar I found another title by David Mitchell, but again, not the book I wanted! I did however find Swallows and Amazons, which made me rather happy.
And with three books, I thought I was done. When I got back to Milwaukee and I decided to check in at Renaissance, not because I thought they'd have anything new, but just to see what what available. When I was there, I came to the brilliant idea that if I wanted a number of used books I could very easily just see if they were on Paperback Swap, and get them for there.
http://www.paperbackswap.com/home.php
Which was also possibly a terrible idea, even if it is an awesome site. I believe I've mentioned it before, but essentially, for the cost of postage, you send some stranger a book of yours that you no longer desire, and you receive credits that then go towards your claiming of books. If there is a book you want that isn't available, you simply add it to your wishlist (along with everyone else who wants that book) and it goes in a fair and orderly fashion. It even tries to give you an estimate as to how many weeks you are likely to wait to get the book. If you run out of credits, you can purchase them, which, at $3.95 per credit, is still a bit cheaper than buying the book new or even used sometimes.
As my mom had been collecting a number of credits, but as I am fairly far down on most of the wishlists I'm on, I've switched my focus to some authors who I enjoy but I was never in a hurry to collect. The result? Since Monday, I've requested 5 books. I have also created a wish list 99 books long (in all the various bindings/versions of the desired books) that could be fulfilled tomorrow or in a year.
I have also now rearranged a good portion of my bookshelves in accordance with my new books that are arriving because it increases certain authors by about 5 books, allowing them their own shelves. I also came up with a better organization than what I had previously. I still have a number of empty or half empty shelves, and while I'm not in a rush to fill them, waiting for the new books to arrives leaves me antsy with anticipation. Furthermore, I keep excitingly checking http://worldbooknight.org/, the World Book Night website as I wait to find out when I will be getting my copies of the The History of Love, because yes, I am such a big book nerd that I can't wait for the opportunity to give books away.
And so, I think I need a book intervention. I am aware that there is a problem, but I am not in any hurry to correct it. The real issue comes with the fact that I had a nightmare that I ran out of shelf space. I would like to clarify, before I am accused of being completely shallow, I don't really dream except for when I am about to wake up. So yes, this has weighed heavily upon me, it wasn't a proper nightmare...actually, I'm not sure that solved anything in terms of disproving shallowness, so much as proving my anal retentiveness.
But that's about it. If you run across any of the 3 last books (and I don't mean new!) please let me know!
