Musing Monday: October 2, 2017

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme, hosted by Ambrosia at The Purple Booker, that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:

I’m currently reading…
Up next I think I’ll read…
I bought the following book(s) in the past week…
I’m super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)…
I’m really upset by (book/author/bookish-news)…
I can’t wait to get a copy of…
I wish I could read ____, but…
I blogged about ____ this past week…

THIS WEEK’S RANDOM QUESTION: What do you do with your non-keeper hard copy books?

I blogged about ____ this past week…

• Monday, September 25 – Musing Monday, briefly talking about book clubs.
• Tuesday, September 26 – Teaser Tuesday, using Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor.
• Wednesday, September 27 – WWW Wednesday in the morning and Top 5 Wednesday, talking about books the online book community inspired me to read, in the afternoon. I finished Dreams of Gods & Monsters and posted a rating and a quote I liked. Then in the evening I had a post talking about a book I’m anticipating, Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao, and my usual WAYRW post. This was a pretty good blogging day for me!
• Thursday, September 28 – Thursday Quotables, a Currently Reading bookstagram (using Unmade by Sarah Rees Brennan and Come A Stranger by Cynthia Voigt), and a progress update for Unmade. And I wrote a response to a discussion post on Pages Unbound about analyzing the books we read.
• Friday, September 29 – I finished Come A Stranger and posted a rating for it, then of course my First Lines Friday and Friday 56 (using Come A Stranger).
• Saturday, September 30 – I posted my weekly progress update for Persuasion by Jane Austen and because it’s the end of the month I posted my Monthly Wrap-Up Part 1 & Part 2 (11 books completed this month, 2 in progress!).
• Sunday, October 1 – Tomes & Tea bookstagram.

What do you do with your non-keeper hard copy books?
Well, I know a lot of the online book community members are major e-reader people, but I am not. I don’t actually have anything against them, I’m not one of those people. I actually like them, I love how available they’ve made books to everybody and I have noticed I read faster on e-readers (or it feels that way because I can’t mark my progress the same as with a physical copy), but I have a little trouble with reading on screens and let’s face it, there is nothing like holding a book in your hands. The weight, the smell, the texture, everything about physical books appeals to me.

All of this is to say:  I have lots of hard copy books. Not as many as some people, but considering I have so little money, I think 600 books is quite a stash.

I try to stick to the rule of only buying copies of books I already know I like. If it’s a book I haven’t read I like to just get it from the public library, and if I like it I’ll put it on my list of books to buy. That way I don’t spend my extremely limited book buying money on books I don’t like.

However, I am pretty terrible at following my own rule… I go to my favorite bookstore, Recycled Books, and I start off looking for books from my list and next thing I know it’s been 3 hours and my my husband (or mother) is standing over me where I’ve sat down on the floor with at least 2 stacks of books, probably more, and lost myself in some book or other. (Tip: If you tell yourself you’ll just read a page or two to see if you want to buy a book, don’t believe yourself. If you are anything like me you will read several chapters before you even realize it.)

AND NOW THAT I’VE TALKED ABOUT A TON OF STUFF LET ME ANSWER THE ACTUAL QUESTION:  When I do wind up with physical books I don’t want to keep, either because I got distracted from my list or because I hit up some garage sale where they had books for a quarter and I couldn’t stop myself, what do I do with them?

I take them back to the aforementioned favorite used bookstore and trade them in for store credit! And then I get to go shopping for more books!! Hurray!

(I’m so sorry, I really didn’t stay on topic even a little bit today…)

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