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I have a confession to make. It's very serious, potentially life threatening (ok, maybe only financially threatening), and very hard to admit to.
I am a secret ebook addict.
There, I said it. I buy ebooks. All the time. A furtive browse on amazon quickly slides into a iniquitous book binge. I get the shakes, sweaty palms, an overriding fear of being found out and then...that thrill of owning a new book. I hide it away in my (obsessively) categorised kindle, hoping that anyone who cares to have a peek will get lost in my many folders before discovering quite how many ebooks I own. And then I carry on with my day, forgetting after a while that I've bought new books. Until that dreaded email - 'thank you for ordering with amazon'. Duh, duh, duhhhhhhhhhh.
Now, aside from my penchant to overly dramatise everything, I can't be the only person who buys ebooks on a whim. Just because they're cheap, or you really want it but it's only out in hardback, or perhaps it's not a shelf-space worthy book, or maybe it's a book that you're a tad embarrassed to own in physical form. I've used all these justifications (excuses) at one time or another. My current go-to excuse is 'it's for holiday reading'. Yes, I'm already collecting ebooks for my holiday in August and have been since January. I think there are more 'holiday' ebooks on my kindle now than I could possibly read in a week. But then (ever sneaky) my brain will convince me that I need choice on this holiday. Why only take 10 ebooks when I could have a whole library of choice. Never mind that half of them will languish on those metaphorical shelves until I reach kindle capacity and realise that I've spent a small fortune on 'cheap' books that I'll 'get to eventually' but eventually never came.
So when I announce on twitter or smugly tell my Mum that I've not bought books in forever, then perhaps give me a nudge and remind me that ebooks count too, no matter how hard I try to convince myself that they don't.
In the spirit of candour, I'm going to list below the ebooks I have purchased from amazon in the last few weeks. Don't judge me too harshly.
The Undertaking by Audrey Magee (read)
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (read)
Night Film by Marisha Pessl
The Story: Love, Loss and the Lives of Women: 100 Great Short Stories ed. Victoria Hislop
Perfect by Rachel Joyce (read)
The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer (read)
The Unseen by Katharine Webb
The Wind-up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth
Catastrophe by Max Hastings
The Silent Wife by A.S.A Harrison
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The End of Alice by A.M Homes
Paris Requiem by Lisa Appignanesi
The Silver Dark Sea by Susan Fletcher
Don't leave me alone in this pit of bookish iniquity - who else is a secret ebook buyer?
Only the hard stuff for me I'm afraid..... [grin]
ReplyDeleteProbably wise!
DeleteIf there was a "like" button for CyberKitten's comment, I would be clicking it! Love it!
DeleteNo judgement here... I am SO bad about buying books. Even with my new book-buying "rules" for myself, I tend to find all kinds of loopholes & exceptions -- "but it's for book club" (even though I could get it at the library), "but I really will read it very soon," "but it's for a reading challenge," "but I have credit at the used bookstore so it's so cheap" -- I am trying, but it's not easy!
ReplyDeleteI can't really hide my purchases because I mostly buy physical books, so that does help keep me in line at least a little bit! My main Kindle temptations are free books (which I don't feel one bit guilty about) and the .99 - 1.99 books which I try to keep in check because e-reading is not my preferred method. I have a Kindle Fire tablet, so I like having the option to e-read, but more often than not I opt for print.
Try not to be so hard on yourself...at least you don't have to worry about where to put them all!
There are always loopholes, I think that's the problem :D
DeleteUnfortunately my habit isn't only for the cheaper ones. Sometimes my buying frenzy spreads!
The space issue is a bright side, that's for sure.
I definitely am! (But now I'm on a book-buying hiatus while I read all those books that are already on my kindle)
ReplyDeletemarelden.com
I wish I could stick to my 'book buying bans' but alas, I struggle to! :D
DeleteI think the "problem" (if we can call it a problem...) with the e-books is the instant gratification. They are just a click away. Buying physical books from online is kind of the same, but you still have to wait for the book arrive, which makes me more hesitant sometimes to click the "buy".
ReplyDeleteI almost only buy e-books with sale prices, though, and I highly value the fact that I don't have to think about the space issues, my shelves are pretty full at the moment.
It is the instant gratification you're right. It's like buying books in a shop (but cheaper). I don't think I ever buy ebooks at a price close to what I'd pay for a physical book - I think £5 is my limit and that is in rare circumstances. Glad I'm not alone :D
DeleteYou are so not alone! I am at my most terrible where there is some kind of kindle sale, I would be ashamed to write down how many unread books I have on my kindle!
ReplyDeleteWe need a support group ....
That is so good to hear! And yes, a support group may be necessary...
DeleteI am HUGELY a secret ebook buyer. I'm a really bad one because I literally don't have any money and I'm just like 'Oh, 99p? That can be my treat for today!' but I WILL HAVE FORGOTTEN ABOUT IT 10 MINUTES LATER and then I'll just go into charity shops and buy more books or whatever. I'm slightly better at not buying, say, £4 or so ebooks, but I'll do it and be like 'well, it's less than the paperback and doesn't take up room' and NO. I don't need more books to read! Except obviously I do.
ReplyDeleteI will join Sam's support group if we're doing that. We should totally do that.
I'm glad you're with me too! I always forget, that's the main problem. With a real book you have to carry it and then find somewhere to put it so it's hard to forget but with an ebook - BAM, you buy it, it's there and then it's forgotten about.
DeleteLet's definitely have a support group.
I have the same problem! I actually primarily read e-books (most bookshops in Japan do not have all of the stuff that I want to read, and if I'm ordering it from amazon anyway, I may as well get it from the amazon uk site to have on my kindle as it will be much much cheaper... plus I do NOT have space for more books in my apartment, it's already full of stuff!), but I get stressed out when I look at my kindle and realise that I have loaaads of stuff on there that I haven't read, so recently I've been trying to stop myself from buying things. I still can't resist the daily deal books though... hehe.
ReplyDeleteThis, it must be said, is one of the reasons I got rid of my Kindle. When I first got it I went mad, buying cheap books and daily deals and scrolling through the top 100 lists every other day looking for new stuff. AND THEN I NEVER READ ANY OF IT. Because I never really got to grips with the categorisation and filing thing, and it took so long to carefully get each new book into a folder, the collection just kept building up, mostly with stuff I'd rather read in paperback, junky previews I'd eagerly requested, and free classics I'd never read because I wanted a better translation. It became the equivalent of a supermarket sweep, or a deal grabber at a library sale - I just swept a load of crap onto there BECAUSE I COULD, then either forgot about it or realised I didn't want it anyway!
ReplyDeleteShort answer: I sucked at ebooks and ereading. That said, I really don't think your choices fall into these categories. I mean, Donna Tartt! Hannah Kent! A.M. Homes! You have smart things on your list and I don't think anyone could tut at such a distinguished selection. The closest I got was an Ann Patchett novel which I subsequently realised I owned in paperback anyway... BUY ON, ELLIE! BUY ON!
I try to keep to my rule to not buy any e-books that are more than $5 and usually only if they are $3 or less. But when I get a daily deal email with something I've been wanting to read for $1.99 I get it immediately!
ReplyDeleteIt's the deals - they suck you in and then you're lost in the book buying!
DeleteOh, I read The Wind-up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi some time ago. It's *really* good!
ReplyDeleteSince I got a Kindle, I've been buying more on it than I thought I would. Not a LOT, necessarily, but novellas, all the Outlander books, and the odd Daily Deal here and there. And there are some romance novels that I've been wanting to get, but then I tell myself I should just buy it on my Kindle when I'm ready to read it b/c it most likely won't be shelf-worthy... those are all valid excuses my dear!
ReplyDelete