It’s been such a long time since I found a meme that I wanted to respond to! My last post in this series was all the way back in May. It’s been much harder now that I used up all the pictures on the original site I was using that inspired this series. Luckily for me, I’m now part of a Facebook group for book lovers, and the members there frequently post all kinds of funny memes/comics, so there are still plenty of pictures to respond to. I chose this one specifically because I found myself in almost exactly this position this week alone:
If you replace “bookstore” with “library” in the comic, this was literally me. Despite my goal of trying to read more of the books I own this year, I still have a ton that I wanted to read from my local library. Now that the weather is good, it’s very easy for me to walk over to the library (a 15 minute walk from my house) and pick up my books. I went away for two weeks last month, and almost as soon as I came back, I decided to release some of my library holds. I’d expected they would take some time to come in, so I started to read the last two books in the Throne of Glass series while waiting, only to discover that nearly all of my holds came in much sooner than I realized!
As of last weekend, I had about 6 or 7 books that had come in, with a couple more in transit. I probably should mention that I had released a total of about 20 books, maybe even closer to 25 released at once. I kind of justified it in my head because several of those were the Giant Days series, and I can read graphic novels like that in about an hour each, so I kind of counted all of those as one full-size book together. I went to pick up my books last week, and ended up wandering around the library for a while to see if there was anything else from my list that happened to be on the shelves. My library is generally pretty good about finding books that people have on hold, but sometimes there’s some pretty weird system to it. I had two Giant Days graphic novels in transit from another branch, for example, even though they were both right on the shelves of my local branch. It’s even weirder since two other volumes that I’d released were found for me…and they must have all been on the same shelf. I released them all at the same time too, so they should have been right next to each other on the list.
I ended up going home with almost double the number of books that I originally went to pick up. That’s not to mention that I still had quite a few holds released, that I decided to leave open anyway. By the middle of the week, I had another 8 books to pick up! This time, I went into it knowing that I absolutely could not take any more books than what was on that holds shelf. My library stack is currently about mid-thigh height for me (although I’m short, so that’s not necessarily saying much). I also have another 3 books in transit and another 4 that I am still waiting for! It probably was a really silly idea to grab all those extra books last week, especially since I’ve just started Kingdom of Ash so it will be at least a few days until I start any of them.
When I saw the comic above, it definitely hit home for me since that was exactly what I had done! I knew that I had books at home to read, and I was there to pick up another stack, yet somehow thought it was a good idea to pick up even more! I think the thought did cross my mind that I shouldn’t take any extras, but it was hard to resist when I was already at the library and it would save me having to release the hold and waiting for them later. And in case anyone’s worried about me hoarding all the books and preventing others who are waiting for them from getting a copy — only one book in my stack currently has anyone waiting for it, and I’m making sure to read that one first. Since I just took it out yesterday, I still have three weeks, which is plenty of time even taking into account Kingdom of Ash.
I love to wander around libraries and bookstores, and sometimes I do have more restraint. I find that’s especially the case in bookstores because of a combo of my lack of space, and the expensive cost of books! I went to three bookstores on my trip in July without buying anything, although I did add many to my TBR for later. I can easily see myself falling into the situation described in the comic though because there are so many books that I want to read and/or buy, so it’s not too much of a stretch to think that I might end up buying something even when I went just to browse. I find it fun to look at the shelves in bookstores and see how many of the books on there are already on my TBR! If I had the space and the money, I would definitely find myself coming home with new books every time. I think the only unrealistic thing about that comic is that she only has one bag!
Abyssal Librarian 