Why I Buy Books

As a lover of libraries and a person committed to consuming less, I should not be a buyer of books. But I am. 

Why do I do it?

• To fulfill my desire for immediateness when I want to read them.
• Because I have the privilege to be able to afford to.
• To support the authors. (Though requesting books at libraries also has this effect.)
• So I won't forget about a book once I hear about it.
• To have a book on hand after I've read it, in case I want to reread it (which I used to do a lot more than I do now) or check something.
• And finally — because I hoard books, though I don't hoard much of anything else.

Aside from my wish to be able to reread or refer freely, I think my hoarding tendency is probably the most important reason. It goes back to my teenage and young adult years during the Cold War nuclear threat: I had the idea then that my library might be the only one that would survive, and so I felt a responsibility to collect books.

At some point I realized this was absurd, but the neuroticism lingers in my behavior.

I'm now reaching an age when I need to think about what we're going to do with the several thousand books in our house. Maybe I should start by getting rid of the ones I've owned a long time without reading them; but honestly, I always tell myself that.

Sigh.