I have a problem...

I love books. I've written about this before, but really I have issues with books. I know the library exists and is a great way to avoid buying books, but in the event that I "love" a book I want to be able to 1) write in it (sorry B!) and 2) not give it back. I use the library to check out things I need as demos for teaching, but I rarely read books from there. This means I buys lots of books. I don't really want to calculate the amount of money I spend on books, but let's just say that I keep bookstores in business. This is mostly because I'm a sucker for a deal. If Borders sends me a coupon, I interpret it as a sign that I need new books (hence the filter "skips the inbox" for Borders coupons during the summertime). B-N was home to a Scholastic warehouse that opened to the public twice a year, until it sadly closed for good this summer. This was a major event in my life. The great thing about the sale was that it had lots of books for $1. Who can refuse a book for $1?

Fast forward through 2 1/2 degrees in English, and I have too many books. That's very hard for me to admit, but it's true. I have to get rid of the junk. I have books I've never read, mass market "junk" that I read in airports, books I had to buy for classes that I didn't want to take, etc. But ever since I took a Shakespeare class as an undergrad and bought the Riverside Complete Works of Shakespeare, I've had this issue with selling books.*

A couple of weeks ago I heard a friend talk about paperbackswap.com and my gut reaction was "I don't have any extra books." This afternoon I played around on the site. I'm by no means purging my library, but I did manage to find 20 books (a tiny fraction of my collection) that I could live without. I posted them, redeemed my two introductory credits and thought to myself "nobody wants the crap I just posted." Not true...I was shocked. Granted I have only swapped one book, but I'm thinking that this may be the solution to my book addiction. It allows me to get an even swap (I realize that this doesn't fix the volume of books issue), and it forces me to think about what I really need. Do I need 3 French-English dictionaries? probably not. The book that I sold (an old French book) was a great deal for the person who snagged it, but I was able to replace it with something I might actually read. Thanks Joe!

*I packed up my books to take the the campus "sell back" and looked at Shakespeare. Even though the book had cost me nearly $100, I felt could not in good conscious sell back the complete works of William Shakespeare. This moral dilemma quickly spread to other areas of my life, and I haven't sold a book since.