Confessions of a Book-Buying Library Page

Today, I did something evil and, some would argue, entirely unnecessary. I paid good hard-earned money for three books. Why is this evil and arguably unnecessary? It's evil because, by all rights, with nothing but a three-day-a-week job at my age I shouldn't be blowing money on anything but food, gas, and the cats. It's arguably unnecessary because I earned the money to pay for those books by working for the local library system. Two, if not all three, of these books are readily available through the library. I know because I've handled them myself at work. And yet, there I was, standing at line in Barnes & Noble with my books in one hand, my B&N Membership 10%-discount card in the other hand, and the coupon I received via e-mail for an extra 15% off one item in the other other hand. (Okay, okay - I had the coupon in the same hand that I had the books in, and I didn't actually take the card out until I reached the counter. Happy, you anatomy nitpickers?)

About a month ago, I was even worse. In one day, between two bookstores, I blew over 70 bucks on books. Okay, so one of them wasn't for me, and in my defense I hadn't been book-buying for some time so I went a bit wild, but still... 70 bucks. And neither bookstore was a Barnes & Noble, so I had no discount card or coupon to blame it on. All of that money came from the coffers of the library, and most of the books purchased (if not all of them) are in storage or circulation as I type.

It's not that I don't have books here to read. At last count, I had... hmm... at a low estimate, 15 books on topics from human anatomy to fantasy eagerly awaiting their turn in my ink stained hands. They're piled on shelves. They're stuffed in boxes. They're stacked on tables. And not a single, solitary one has come from the library. In fact, since the day I hired on, I haven't pulled a single, solitary item to be checked out yet. We can, of course. If there's no hold slip on it, and if the Great Machine hasn't scanned it into its massive memory works, we're allowed to pull most anything to check out. And it's not a poorly-stocked library system, by any means. We're second in the nation for circulation, after all. Nor is it a matter of lack of access. That money could still be in my bank account, and I could still be reading plenty of great, great stories. For some reason, though, when I get to work, and those books are going through my hands, so many books my hands are almost black by break time, I'm not thinking of potential reading material.

I think it may be that I've trained myself not to read in public. I'll read magazines, maybe, or newspaper articles, or in an emergency a road sign or two. But experience has taught me that reading - real reading, the kind where you lose yourself among the words and soar freely through a story - and company do not mix. I get nastily single-minded about reading. The disconnect from reality that others may achieve through alcohol or drugs is what I get from a good story. Try to engage me in conversation while I'm holding a book, and you're liable to get your head torn off. I don't take crash-landings back in my miserable little reality kindly. I see other people at work pausing to read cover blurbs and even a few pages in books, and I wonder how it would go over if I tried to do that... then I have a mental image of me verbally decapitating a co-worker or a boss, and I remember how terribly discouraging and frustrating job hunting is, and I put my mental nose back to the grindstone and start slinging books again. Every so often I've picked out a title and author that sounds intriguing, but always, instead of taking the book itself home, I hit Amazon or B&N.Com for book reviews and maybe a used copy.

There's also a corner of my mind that rebels at being held to another's timetable. I don't want to be forced into a story, nor do I want to be forced into finishing it by a given date. Sure, when I get going I can polish off a novel in a day or a weekend, but speed isn't always the point of reading. Sometimes I'm just not in a mood to rush a book, and sometimes a book's just not want I want to read at the time. Some of the books in my backlog have been gathering dust for a few years, and then someday something clicks in my mind and it finally gets a chance to tell me its story.

Terrible as it seems, one of the chief excuses I have for not taking advantage of library material is my reading backlog. When it drops below double digits, I tell myself, I'll grab a book or DVD off the line. I even vaguely form mental lists of what I'll look for first. Then I go out and buy a few more books, knowing full well it could be weeks or months or maybe a year before I actually read them.

I know it's illogical. I know I ought to be stashing away all this book money for better uses - dental check-ups, eye exams, car repairs, investments, rebuilding my Life Or Death Fund. Yet even though I work for a library, even though I've had more free reading material go through my hands in the past eight or so months than I could possibly count, there's just something about walking out of a bookstore with a bag full of stories that still gets my heart racing. And sad as it is, I know I'll be right back at Barnes & Noble in barely a week's time. The fourth book in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series is due out then - two days after my coupon would've expired - and while I'm sure, the day after, I'll be slinging a box or two full of brand-new library copies of it onto the belt at work, I still can't wait to walk out of the store with my own copy... and, most likely, a few other books for company.