We’ve probably all seen the safety warning on the passenger side mirrors  of  cars. Wikipedia says it’s not just a US phenomenon, that other countries do this too. You know the phrase, “objects in mirror are closer than they appear”.

Sometimes it’s not real until after you’ve backed into the car behind you, usually while parallel parking. C’est la vie.

However, I’m here about books. And bookshelves. And the objects in this photo are more numerous than they appear. We moved from the Atlanta suburbs to Seattle in December. In spite of my current preference for ebooks, it hasn’t always been so.

Not to mention, I’ve been collecting books for decades. Every conceivably available wall in our apartment has a six-foot tall bookshelf “decorating” it. This picture isn’t of a room. It’s the hallway. We (my husband is just as much of a collector as I am) have over 2,000 books. And we just moved them across the country. Again.

We haven’t even got them back in order yet. We will. Eventually.

But I’ve noticed a strange, and possibly even frightening thing. It has to do with where I work.

I’ve probably mentioned this a few (dozen) times. I’m a librarian. Even when I don’t work in an actual library, I’m still a librarian. But not all of the libraries I’ve worked in have had the kind of collections that interest me as a reader. For example, university libraries don’t buy a lot of romance or fantasy. It’s just not what they do. It’s not even what they are supposed to do. But that’s a story for another day.

Right now, I work in a big public library. The place I work in has a lot, make that lots and lots and lots, of just the kind of thing that I read. (It’s probably the equivalent of trying to diet and working at a bakery)

So if I see something interesting and discover it’s book 3 in a series, instead of “just saying no”, or even having second thoughts about whether I want to buy book 1 and book 2, what do I do? I look to see if my library has it. They usually do. Instead of saying “no”, I not only say “hell, yes”, but I say “hell, yes” to all three books! My TBR stack is growing exponentially. And it wasn’t exactly under a whole lot of restraint before.

I’d say I was looking for the local chapter of Biblioholics Anonymous, but that would mean I want to quit. And I don’t.

About Marlene

Marlene is a librarian, ebook advocate, science fiction fan, and RPG fan who lives in the Atlanta suburbs. She and her husband are owned by four cats, just ask them. She's a geek and a nerd and proud of it. She's also an avid reader of everything, including the back of the cereal box, and has been blogging since April 2011 at Reading Reality and is a reviewer at Library Journal as well as active on Goodreads. She is also the publisher of Ebook Review Central.

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