Book Buying Addicts Anonymous discussion
When You Shop Books...How many do you end up buying?
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At book sales, it's not unheard of for me to walk out with upwards of 20. This last library sale, I left with 17 books, and they were all generally contemporary books, which I don't normally buy much. I tend to stick to classics, which gets me in trouble.




Library books sales are another story. I don't count the number of books I buy there, I count the number of bags of books I walk out with:)


However, a visit could be once a week, depending on how much time i can devote to reading... sometimes it could last as long as three weeks (like when i was on my Jose Saramago kick -- his books are hard work for me, requiring many many breaks for sanity purposes).
I also get readers Anxiety if I have too many unread books sitting and calling my name. I never know which to start, and once i pick, I start to wonder if another book would have been better, but i dont read multiple books at a time, so i end up rushing through the current book to be able to sit and think about which next book i want to read, and the crazy little cycle repeats itself again.
Ive learned that three unread books at a time is a comfortable limit for me :)





If it's a major chain bookstore, and I go in for 1 book, then I usually come out with 2-3.
Amazon, I usually hit the super-saver shipping $25 limit, plus a book or two, spending maybe $50.
Used bookstore? None around where I live, so when I hit one, I stock up! I went to Portland, OR once, and took an empty suitcase. I kid you not. I think I bought >50 books at Powells.
Being a writer and thus spending lots of time in bookstores, talking to managers, doing signings, etc., has inoculated me against the lure of bookstores. If I bought 2-3 books every time I went into a store, my house would be nothing but stacks of books with little rabbit trails among them. My family would hold an intervention.
TK Kenyon
Author of RABID: A Novel (suitable as a Xmas gift for your most bitter and disillusioned friend.)
and CALLOUS: A Novel (Another bite of a bittersweet confection coming in May, 2008.)
"[Rabid] is a genre-bending story, part thriller, part literary slapdown with dialogue as the weapon of choice."--Booklist Starred Review



If I'm going to a used bookstore I'd say my average purchase # is around 6 titles......yes..incredibly greedy~!