Bookaholics Anonymous?

If there is such a thing as bookaholics anonymous, sign me up. Right now. The atmosphere in my house is growing increasingly tense as my book buying habits are threatening to take over every available bookshelf. I've doubled up and piled high on all mine and now I'm starting to encroach on any space whatsoever. Kitchen table, windowsills, the floor...Needless to say my parents are unimpressed. And yet, I am still unable to exercise any self-restraint. However (and this is a big however), I am able to provide my reasoning behind every purchase (sounding desperate now, I can tell).

Quiet by Susan Cain (unofficially aka 'all hail introverts')
Red, the Waterstones Anthology
The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen
The Great Gatsby notebook

Now, my sister's kindle broke as we were sitting down in the eurostar departure lounge just before new year. There were tears and there was shouting (all from me, she was fine). I gave her a tenner and sent her off to Smiths to get something to read. To fill in the back story: my sister is not a reader, the only one in my family who is not a reader and I have been desperately trying to get her to read for years. I bought her the kindle last Christmas and since then she has not looked back. She lives in London so it is ideal for all her tube journeys. Especially when you compare our reading material in this picture:

Liv with her kindle and me with Pat Barker's Regeneration series (all 3 books in 1)

Anyway, she is home at the moment and looking for something else to read. Unfortunately she didn't fancy any of books; if she had this whole debacle could have been avoided. So we took a trip into Waterstones. Rookie Mistake. There were buy-one-get-one-half-price signs everywhere, sale signs and so so many pretty books. I literally felt I had fallen into some sort of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas drug induced book-mad state. I walked out of the shop to find I had unwittingly purchased three books and one notebook and several cards with pictures of books on (why?!). I was a quivering wreck for the rest of the day.

Onto the actual reasons why I chose these specific books: Quiet and The Land of Decoration have just come out in paperback. I have wanted them since they came out in hardback but held off so I just could not refuse (surely?). Quiet I am very excited to read because I am most definitely an introvert and would like more of an insight into introvertedness. The notebook I got because it was cheaper than my usual moleskine (how I love thee), although I am wishing I stuck with the moleskine just because they are so pretty. I have been intrigued by the Red anthology since it was released because it seems to be an interesting concept and there are lots of interesting contributors like Emma Donoghue, Max Hastings and David Almond. Yet again I just couldn't resist when I saw it in the flesh: hardback, red, gold lettering. I am shallow when it comes to buying books. Shallow and somewhat promiscuous. 

Wow. All of that to explain why I've bought some books. Had enough of hearing my excuses? I think that's called denial, isn't it? I'm clearly well on my way to becoming a fully-fledged bookaholic*.



* unfortunately I am slightly proud of this fact so I'm thinking I will not be changing my ways any time soon. No matter how many bans I put myself on. Oh dear. 

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