Is it greed if it’s not need?

As of this moment I own 78 crime fiction books and 61 books from a range of other genres that I haven’t read. There’s a tall pile of books borrowed from friends in the corner and I also have seven bookmooch requests making their way to me across the seas, am expecting two books I bought online to arrive in a week or so and several ARC books are due any day. Despite this embarrassment of riches (that’s more books than I will read in the next 12 months) I came home with these books yesterday.

I can, of course, justify my purchases because the books were extraordinarily cheap (new books for $5 is almost unheard of here in Oz and having books of quality at that price is something I’ve never seen before) and all were titles or authors I’m interested in.

But even I, master of the righteous justification, can’t claim that I needed them.

I have started to feel troubled about this propensity to acquire more than I can use. Isn’t that the very thing that, on a collective scale, has been partly responsible for the current global financial crisis? I know for a fact that rampant consumerism is having a detrimental impact on our fragile planet but even the guilt that knowledge engenders in me doesn’t stop me acquiring more books than I can read.

I know I’m not alone. In a recent discussion on the 4 Mystery Addicts reading group many members discussed their  TBR piles containing hundreds of books and several admitted to having thousands of unread books. Are we all just plain greedy? I find it and odd trait in myself as I’m not naturally acquisitive. I don’t own loads of clothes or shoes or houses and am the opposite of a hoarder.  I like my life as de-cluttered as possible. But I can’t seem to stop acquiring books.

Nor, it seems, can I stop worrying about the fact that I am acquiring too many books.

 

100 books given away

Logo artwork courtesy of BookMooch.com

As of today I have officially given away one hundred books via BookMooch.com (not counting those still in transit). Such a milestone seemed worthy of recognition.

For the uninitiated, BookMooch is a website that facilitates the swapping of books across the globe. As is the way of serendipity in a web 2.0 world I first discovered the site, indeed the whole notion of web-enabled book swapping, when reading the profile of one of my GoodReads friends (thanks Sun). I joined BookMooch in April 2008 and fell in love.

The concept behind BookMooch is that you list books you’re willing to give away and each time you give away a book you get a point (or 3 if you send the book out of your country). You then use those points to request books that are listed by other members of the site. You pay nothing to join the site and nothing for the books you get but you do pay for postage on the books you give away.

Here are my top five reasons to love BookMooch:

It’s a cheap way to feed my addiction. I’ve spent roughly $500 on posting my books which might sound like a lot but in the same time I’ve received 75 books and have accumulated enough points for 45-90 more (depending on whether I get them from overseas or within Australia). So each book I mooch costs me a maximum of $5. That’s sweet economics in a country where new release books cost upwards of $35 and even a decent second hand book is likely to be $10.

It’s a better option than second hand shops in a small city. There’s a shop that I’ve visited once or twice a month for three and a half years and not once have I seen any Scandinavian crime fiction or much other than mainstream blockbuster authors on the shelves. BookMooch offers me a global bookshelf from which to choose. I have sent books to or received books from people within Australia as well as the US, Japan, Hungary, Cyprus, Poland, France, The Philippines, Greece, Ireland, England, Switzerland, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands, Canada and Trinidad and Tobego! I have several regular moochees (is that a word?) who are happy to wait on the exceedingly slow sea mail from Australia.

Warm Fuzzy Feelings. I’m pathologically incapable of throwing books away but I have limited storage space. I do donate some books to charity but they’re getting picky these days and I get a real buzz out of sending my books around the country and across the globe to fellow book lovers. In case you think that makes me odd in a survey of BookMooch members conducted last October 75% of respondents reported feeling good when they send books away. We can’t all be barking mad. 

I can try new things. When I see a review of a book somewhere and think it sounds interesting I add the title to my bookmooch wishlist and wait for someone to add it to their inventory. It’s probably not the quickest way to do it but it’s cheaper than buying books I might not like and it’s proven more successful than using my local public library at finding new-to-me authors. Some of the books I’ve mooched have been so awful I’ve re-listed them without even finishing them but they are a tiny minority.

It’s Green. Ish. Buying books which will be read once and sit forever more on a shelf is not the kindest thing we can do for our troubled planet. Even though the publishing industry is starting to introduce more sustainable practices such as using recycled paper and funding sustainable tree farming there is still a massive carbon footprint from the publishing industry. Obviously reading e-books would be even more planet-friendly but in Australia this just isn’t feasible yet as we don’t have much choice in the way of e-readers. While I wait for an Aussie version of a Kindle I’m trying very hard not to buy new books which will only be read once. We have to consume less and share more in all facets of our lives and swapping books with fellow addicts is a good step to a more carbon-friendly life.

For the record I do know there are other book swapping sites but the main “competitor” to BookMooch is annoyingly US-only so I’m not giving them a plug

 

BTT: I’m Thankful For…

This week’s Booking Through Thursday task is to list 7 things I am thankful for in honour of Thanksgiving Day in the US. The list doesn’t have to be about books but, because I am trying to stay on topic with this blog, my list is all book related. In no particular order today I am thankful for…

• The Book Depository- an online bookstore that offers free shipping worldwide which is a must for book addicts in the antipodes like myself
• Douglas Adams - for the many hours of enjoyment he has provided me
• My mum – for passing on her love of books (read a bit about this in my earlier post about books I’ve received as gifts)
• Aust Crime Fiction – a site I discovered earlier this year which has led to my discovery of a whole swag of new (to me) Australian crime fiction writers
• BookMooch – since discovering this site in April I’ve given away nearly a hundred books to fellow book lovers and obtained nearly 70 new (to me) books to read  
• My iPod – which allows me to ‘read’ while I’m walking, on the bus, doing the housework and any number of other activities which prevent reading the traditional way
• Edgar Allan Poe – the author of what is generally acknowledged as the first modern mystery (The Murders in the Rue Morgue) without which my favourite genre might never have existed (and also the author of my favourite poem of all time – A Dream Within A Dream)

 

Weekly Geeks #26 – What do we have in common?

This week’s Weekly Geeks challenge is to snoop around the blogs of five other Weekly Geek-ers that I don’t know and find something in common with them. I chose 5 blogs at random and found the following:

1. On At Home Wtih Books I discovered that the blog’s host Alyce isn’t normally a mystery novel reader so I thought we might not have a lot in common because that is my favourite genre. However Alyce is a fan of Alexander McCall Smith, an author I discovered to my delight only this year. In her 22 November post Alyce highlights his new online novel Corduroy Mansionswhich I have been listening to via podcast since chapter one.
2. I wouldn’t have predicted that I’d have a lot in common with a 20-year old student from Belgium but at at Pink Blue Whale I discovered that Skodder and I both started our blogs this year and both enjoy the humour and wit of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey.
3. At Worducopia it only took me a nanosecond or two to discover that I share a love of the movie Monty Python’s Life of Brian with Ali. It’s one of my top ten favourite movies of all time and my friends are sick of me saying “He’s not the Messaiah – he’s just a very naughty boy” at odd moments.
4. In an October post at She Reads Books I discovered that Christine is a fellow BookMooch fan. She also offers a dozen other ways to rid yourself of books you no longer need.
5. At A Striped Armchair I found we’d both reviewed A God’s Spy by Juan Gomez-Jurado. It was the only shared review I discovered during this challenge but, given I’ve only reviewed 7 books, it’s amazing I found any at all. Her thoughts about the book are here while mine are here and it seems we both found it entertaining.

This was a fun challenge for me but it made me hope no one comes to my blog looking for things in common. As I’ve been book blogging for less than a month there’s not much source material to snoop around in.