Screw the Program!

1. Incarnation – Emma Cornwall
2. The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt
3. The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman
4. A Study in Scarlet – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
5. Fangirl – Rainbow Rowell
6. Teeth – Hannah Moskowitz
7. The Fiery Heart – Richelle Mead

I have decided that I am going to embrace my addiction to the written word. Almost exactly three months ago I started counting down a list of books that I had bought and not yet had the chance to read. At present I am reading the very last book on that list (A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki). But now I have to start all over again with the books in that gorgeous, if not daunting, picture above. And all because QBD had a sale, Dymocks had a sale, and I was given book vouchers as going away presents by my oh-so-astute workmates. There was no other outcome: of course I was going to relapse! But I have made the executive decision to just deal with it. So I have seven new books to read, not including the three previous Bloodlines books that I have to reacquaint myself with before I can read The Fiery Heart?   I also have to re-read The Mortal Instruments before May next year in order to be completely submerged in the Shadowhunter way of life so that I can properly appreciate the City of Heavenly Fire. And then, of course, the last book the Secrets of the Eternal Rose trilogy, Starling, comes out in March next year so I’ll have to re-read Venom and Belladonna. Not to mention that I want to re-read The Hunger Games and Harry Potter at some point.

Being a bookworm is no joke, trust me.

So instead of bemoaning this weakness I seem to have, I am going to exploit it. I have $14 of saved Dymocks money on my loyalty card (don’t ask how many books I had to buy in order to earn that) as well as just under $40 in book vouchers left from my leaving home presents. I was planning to save them for books I really, really want, but who am I kidding? I really, really want all of them.

So I say screw the program!

Must have this room in my house someday. Otherwise, my books won’t fit!

There will be no rehabilitation from this addiction. There will always be new books, new authors, new ideas, and new fandoms to fall in love with, so why try to deny it? I still haven’t read the Divergent trilogy. Maybe I’ll buy that one. Although there’s still Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein, or the Red Necklace and The Silver Blade by Sally Gardner (made all the more appealing by the fact that TOM HIDDLESTON reads the audio book for The Red Necklace) that I want to read. See? Decisions, decisions. Plus, I plan on owning everything Neil Gaiman has ever written. 

And I can justify this to myself  with an article that I read not too long ago. It listed I think about twenty reasons why it’s actually OK to buy books and not read them. And while that sounds like a whole heap of BS, the article made a very good point. I can’t find the original article, even though I could have sworn I re-tweeted it and therefore it should be in my Twitter history, but this is another article I found along a similar vein, entitled “Why it’s ok to buy books and not read them”. At the very least, even if you don’t agree with what this guy has said, you can at least say that you have supported a struggling artist. Unless, of course, you’ve bought a book by JK Rowling. In that case who are you kidding? You just needed another JK fix.

Related articles

• Falling off the wagon (infernalimagination.wordpress.com)
• An A-Z of Being a Bookworm (infernalimagination.wordpress.com)
• Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (thebookboozer.wordpress.com)
• Review – The Fiery Heart (italicbooks.wordpress.com)
• Richelle Mead answers fan questions for Goodreads (herroyalguardian.com)
• Scootsa1000′s #CBR5 Review 52: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (cannonballread5.wordpress.com)