BOOKAHOLISM

There are many cleverly named bookstores and websites that use the word, 'bookaholic' or 'bookaholism' in their titles. I cannot say for certain that there is no Webster's Dictionary definition for either word nor that it doesn't appear in any medical books or journals that I have seen (albeit I didn't really look very hard... or at all). To me...it's sort of a made up word. One that you might find in an urban dictionary. In today's world, you throw 'aholic' behind any other word and it means to be addicted or obsessed with something. A bookaholic in my estimation... is a lover of books or someone that is addicted to reading. Some of these individuals may attempt to read multiple books all at the same time. I believe that as long as there are libraries and these cleverly named bookstores, that this is a disease for which I hope there is no cure.

I love to read and I pretty much have a book of one kind or another in my hand at any given time. Lately, I've been on a kick of reserving books from the public library. It's so much easier and cheaper to feed my reading addiction that way. The risky part of borrowing or reserving a book from the library is that you only have three weeks to read it. If a library allows me to reserve as many books as I want at one time, they obviously must think I can get through them all in a 3-week period... right?

Since there were several books that I wanted to read, I reserved five of them. This would be no big deal if I were a really fast reader and/or the book(s) were less than 200 pages or were auto-renewable... note to self...some are not. Also, if sitting down with a good book and a steaming hot cup of coffee were all I had to do all day...again, it would be no big deal. Ahh... if only that were true.

I had no difficulty in reserving the books. In fact nowadays, the public library makes it quite easy... I never even left my sofa. My problem began when only one of the books I reserved was available. My queue positions in line to receive the majority of them was anywhere between 49 and 300, which lead me to believe that I had a good, solid month or two before the rest of the books would be in. Foolishly, I thought it was safe to go ahead and reserve more...after all, one or two were bound to come in within the next week and I would be able to get through them before the other books became available. So, I reserved an additional five books, bringing my total number on hold to ten. If I haven't said it before, let me repeat... borrowing books or reserving them from the library is a good thing!  Unless, you reserve ten or more at one time and eight of them come in all at once!! 😳 I knew I should have reserved audio books!!

The moral to my story is...try not to go overboard when reserving books at the library...one or two at a time should suffice. The others will be there when you're ready to read them and whatever you do...don't place too much stock in queuing positions!!  😕

Hello, I am a bookaholic...