New Year, Old Shelves: Book-Buying Stats from 2022... and My 2023 Book-Buying Ban

We start with a flashback. 

In a fit of self-imposed expectation -  after gorging myself on bullet journaling content on Instagram at the end of 2021 - I decided to impose some radically different structures on my Book Journal for 2022. Quite a few of these design choices ended up being totally welcome, and honestly, darn helpful... and one, in particular, threw one of my absolutely worst impulse habits into pretty sharp relief. 

I monitored each book I took onto my shelves. I started tracking all of my bookish buys, at the top of each month, on a spread I called "The Receipts." 

(And before you asked, no, I did not manage to spell "receipts" correctly each month. In fact, I got it wrong more often than not. Sometimes, I spelled it correctly, and still second-guessed myself, and had to do it over again anyways.) 

That's not all I tracked, either, as I also made sure to write when I had been given a bookish gift, or checked out something from the library, too. 

Am I positive the numbers are correct and squared away on everything? No, of course not. There's a margin of error for everything human-shaped, and honestly, I feel that mathmatical margin should have a higher allowance when dealing with an English major (Or, at a minimum, just this particular English major). But the fact of the matter is, even if there was some how a chance that I flubbed the numbers a little, the overall effect would still be the same: I spend way too much damn money on books. 

For instance, in January 2022 alone, I checked out ONE book from the library, purchased TEN discounted Kindle novels in ebook format, was delivered SIX books from a Book Outlet order for myself, and purchased SIX additional books for other members of my family. 

Of all those books, only ONE of those ended up getting read by the end of the year, let alone month. 

And it was the library book. 

You see my problem? 

Now I know what you're thinking: what kind of numbers are we talking, here? Well... 

All told, I read FORTY-SIX books in 2022. (Of those, far less than half were from my own shelves as they existed before the start of the year.) 

According to my own (flawed) bookkeeping, the number of physical, in-my-hand-and-on-my-shelves measurable books I either purchased or was gifted and own now, taking up room on my tangible, material shelves, is NINETY-FIVE.

And that's not including the THIRTY-NINE ebooks I also added to my Kindle. 

Nor does it factor in the SEVENTY-SIX books I checked out - be it in person, on audiobook, or on Kindle - from my local library. (That being said, a lot of those are cookbooks, or audiobooks I don't actually end up listening to, so... free pass, right?) 

I also ended up buying THIRTY books for other people - I'm such a giver! - which, depending on which member of my family you are, typically end up making their way onto my shelves, too.

As you can clearly see, that kind of math doesn't scan. Not even a little bit. What's the point of clearing books off of my shelves, like I did in June, if I'm just going to fill them up almost immediately with enough reading material it would take me another two years to clear it all out again, to find my way back to NOT zero, but instead, the over 300 books I had started with? Why do I do this to myself? 

Obviously, something has GOT to give. Which means taking a step back... once more, into a time machine, back to the years of 2015 and 2017. (We were so young back then.) 

By far, my biggest month for obtaining physical books was my Birthday month, back in October. Whether it was due to a self-indulgent Powell's haul, or presents from family, or a splurge at my favorite local secondhand store, I got a total of THIRTY BOOKS added to my shelves.

And of course, three from the library.

book buying ban: we've been around the world, and we'll do it again

First up: 2015. I'm a Junior-then-Senior in college at University of Washington in Seattle, soaring through my term on Panhellenic, living in the city over the Summer for an internship that falls apart almost immediately, and then, moving into an apartment for the first (and so far, last) time. I'm not yet horrifically depressed, and instead, only a gentle sort of semi-depressed, one that comes from being tremendously busy, and seeing a cliff edge in the horizon but not yet being close enough to panic about hitting the brakes.

I don't even mention my Book-Buying Ban until after it's already over, on January 9th of 2016, when I talk about what I learned from the experience. My reasoning behind the decision was basic enough - I was saving money, and reading books I already owned, natch - but I still ended up reading 79 books all-told that year. 

(Ahem. We don't need to talk numbers in the wake of this year's botched Goodreads Challenge... but it's nice to reflect on what you were once capable of, you know?) 

Some of the lessons I learned: how to effectively use every corner of the Tacoma Public Library system, both virtual and physical; understanding the emotional catalysts in play that make me want to buy books; recognizing the benefits of collecting hardcovers; the joys of having friends who lend you things without making you pay for them. 

We take 2016 as it comes - and it seems to be, both personally and socioculturally, kind of a loss all-around - and we stumble into 2017 with the best of intentions. We've done it before, right? Why not make the challenge again? After all, we did it when we were just a poor college student... we're now a poor college grad, and that feels even worse! 

At the time, I head my blogpost announcing said ban with an image, of the 80+ books I have amassed, and not yet read. Oh, no. Eighty? Poor January 2017 Savannah might drop dead of shock if we tell her that we're now well into the four hundreds. (She'd also probably be angry about the fact that we're still single, and maybe even the haircut, but she'll recover.) 

My Word of the Year was "Curate," and I was feeling the editorial spirit; hence, why the intentional streamlining of shelves. More than that, I was having troubles going into bookstores and finding anything I was actually interested in buying, rather than reflecting on all of the unread things at home (Was 2016 just a particularly bad year for publishing, or something?). 

I ended up reading 60 books in 2017 - a steep drop-off from, again, 69 in 2015 - but expressed dismay that I didn't end up clearing as many books off of my shelves as I had originally intended. (That siren song emanating from the local library branch is a beguiling mistress.) 

Both years, though, I gave myself a couple of "outs" for my challenge: I would be allowed to purchase FIVE books on my Bloggoversary, in late July... and in 2017, I budgeted for TWO books on Independent Bookstore Day, as well (which brought the total for that year up to seven). And of course, library books were always a given, and I was open and available to receive books as presents, too. See? Totally doable. 

Which is why I know I'm more than capable of doing it all again. 

what the plan is for 2023

It's a testament to how badly I need this challenge this year, in how desperate my weasel-brain has tried to squirm its way into a couple of exit tunnels already, even before the year had really begun in earnest. "But this doesn't count for the library, right?" it whines over breakfast. "And not cookbooks, either? We love new cookbooks!" 

No, it doesn't count for the library. Or, for that matter, for cookbooks (because I am weak, and extremely susceptible to thrift stores). But I'm being a lot more conscious of why I pick up books in the first place... what makes me feel that desperate, wiggly sensation in my chest that makes me think, "I need to get to Barnes and Noble before it closes!" 

So remember how I said I had those pages in my Book Journal about what books I was buying, every single month, "The Receipts"? (Editor's note: I spelled it wrong again in typing this out.) I'm keeping those pages, but calling them something different: Book Cravings. When I feel those intense emotions in a bookstore, or when I find myself wandering through the paperback aisles in Goodwill, what am I feeling? What am I actually looking for, lusting after? Is it something I can actually find on a shelf? Is it something I can find on a shelf at home? 

Am I looking for an emotional release, some kind of self-soothing technique that's morphed into something transactional? When I use it as a way to celebrate myself on a good day, is it something that could instead be better turned towards a coffee with friends, or a call with my sister? Am I trying to distract myself from something important, that warrants more of my attention? Is there more at play here than just a credit card scan, or that pressed-paper, unbroken-spine, tactile sense of physical grounding when the cashier puts the book back in your hand, along with a receipt? 

You know, Book Cravings. Those things you're feeling when you're Craving a Book. It's not rocket science. 

I think that by tracking the emotions I tie to the act of acquiring new reading material, it will give me greater clarity as to how this particular hobby impact my emotional needs long-term (let alone the financial ones). Chances are, there are other needs here that are not being met when I download a batch of $1.99 romance novels on my Kindle that end up sitting there, untouched, for over a year, and I want to find out what they are. 

So, that's the plan! No Barnes & Noble, Powell's, King's, Thrift Books, or Book Outlet, until the new year... or, you know, July, for my Bloggoversary. Unless I want a cookbook, or to go to the library. 

Come on, guys. I'm being serious. Stop laughing!  

Have you ever undertaken a book-buying ban before? Do you remember when I completed these challenges last time? Let me know, in the comments below!

Everyone Loves a Before and After: Spring Cleaning My Bookish Spaces

My room is a mess; there's no way around it. Ever since I moved home after college, I've made best use of the amplitude of space I've been afforded here, in my childhood home, by absolutely destroying it. 

There's books stacked pretty much everywhere. Clothes to donate haphazardly collected underneath coffee tables, stacks of candy piled on top of the extra cake stands sitting in the middle of my room, and piles and piles of fabric ready for various sewing and embroidery projects quite literally stuffed underneath chairs like I've got something to hide (What I'm actually hiding: the fact that I haven't actually worked on a sewing or embroidery project since before Covid hit). 

More annoyingly, I have junk collected in front of my bookcases. I have four total sets of bookshelves where I keep various kinds of books, and every single one of them comes complete with some kind of impediment to obscure half of the titles from closer inspection. 

There's absolutely nothing right about this, at all. 

So, thanks to the inspiration given by an inundation of Spring Cleaning videos and time lapses on Instagram and YouTube this month, I've got the opportunity to add my own tidying up to the mix. And because I've got a lot of plans for this summer - including Sewing, Reading, and the amplitude of toilet paper rolls and seed packets stacked up haphazardly on the crowded end of my desk - I've finally found the motivation to get it all assembled into some semblance of organized. 

At least this way, I'll maybe have enough room to stop double-stacking all of my bookshelves. 

There are two areas in particular I'm hoping to organize:

#1. The area in front of my TBR, Mystery, and Middle Grade bookshelves. To Do:

• Clean out everything that's been piled there to donate, and, you know. Donate it. 
• Move chair a little ways forward, so you can actually access all of the bookshelves more easily.
• Find a better place for all the wrapping paper and gift stuff, which really doesn't need to be next to your bed, and / or bookcases. Maybe nearer your desk? 
• Amend the lighting situation so it works a little better, maybe by adding an extra lamp? That way, you also might not look like the palest girl in the world on FaceTimes / Zoom meetings. 
• Clean off the coffee table next to your chair so you can actually use it. 
• Figure out where to put the Big Box of Paranormal Romances so it's not just sitting in the way. I don't mind it being out in the open - I've got nothing to hide! - but at least make sure you don't have to worry about shredding part of your ankle on the rough cardboard in the mornings when you open your windows.

#2. The area in front of my other Bookshelves, as well as the Pile of Junk behind my chair, and Further Mess gathered on my desk. To Do: 

• Where are you going to put the sewing stuff??? 
• Clean off the top of the desk so you have more space, so you feel like you can actually work on it again. 
• Consolidate and reorganize all crafting supplies, so as to be better contained in one space. Also, do you really need to keep ALL of the acrylic paint in your room?
• Move all postage / cards / postcards into one condensed location, as if this will actually compel you to follow your gut and starting sending out regular letters to your friends, like you've been meaning to do for the past year in Quarantine
• Honestly, just clear out area underneath the desk, while you're at it. There's a lot of Scrapbooking stuff under there. 
• Move more of the board games into the garage so you don't feel like you're courting death whilst standing in front of your shelves.
• Move chair and coffee table so you can better access the books on the lower shelves of the white bookcase, which will hopefully also be easier to look at now all of the Junk will be moved.

And no matter what I accomplish in both areas, there's one last thing I'm going to have to do to designate each side as clean: go through the titles I have collected there, and see whether there are any I'm interested in donating. 

I'm pretty good with that last bit in regards to my TBR shelves, which I comb through regularly. Thanks to various personal habits - like a regular round of speed-dating my shelves about once a month or two, which I wrote about most recently here and here - I've got some practice un-hauling books I haven't read, that I can still recognize aren't for me. It's getting rid of past reads that I usually have more of a problem with.

But I have to. The situation, as it stands, is untenable: I have four tall bookshelves all around my room, but also no available space to stick new reads. I can read down my TBR shelves, for sure - whether I'm very good at that, is a completely different question - but that won't mean anything if there's no room nearby for me to put them. 

And as a general side note: before you ask why I have so many armchairs and coffee tables all collected in my room, please know that between the long coffee table, two end tables, long couch and two armchairs, they all come courtesy of my Grandma Loretta, who passed in 2015. The original idea was that they'd all simply hang out in there until we could find some additional space to store them - our storage unit is crammed full of holiday decor, and the garage is similarly stuffed - but no one's really moved out and claimed them. (Plus, I now feel very protective of them, and have been known to yell at siblings for mistreating the upholstery / putting shoes on pillows, so no one else has really proved themselves worth of them, either.) 

AFTERMATH

Three weeks, it took me. Three weeks. I've been writing this blogpost since the 6th, and now look at what day it is. Look at how much time has passed. I'd be positively aggravated with myself, if the room didn't look so darn good! 

It's honestly incredible how much more room it feels like I have in here now. Granted, I did move a ton out - Arts and Crafts supplies are now solidly collected downstairs in the laundry room, and all that I keep near my desk are Calligraphy, Scrapbooking, and Journaling stuff - plus I also donated a total of two and a half grocery bags of books, an additional three of which are waiting to make their way towards worthwhile homes, but still. It's positively cavernous in here. 

The desk area is, by far, the most inviting part of it all. Its insane to have this long of a desk, and feel like you're not able to utilize all of it. I also can now access the outlet in the wall, so that should it be necessary, I could actually do something as radical as - gasp! - charge my laptop over here. Can you imagine?

The Sewing Stuff has all been moved, with my sewing machine, to a space tucked in next to my hanging closet. Is it still a lot? Sure. But I found and cleaned off an old plastic set of drawers we had sitting in the garage, and it all fits in there! Well, most of it. There are still a few bags filled with miscellaneous detritus piled up alongside. That's where the Gift Wrap has managed to find a home, too. 

(A brief note: my younger sibling boldly exclaimed, when she saw this new set-up, "You didn't clean, you just moved the mess around!" And while it's true that my Sewing and Gift Wrap leaves... a little to be desired, it's a far, far improvement from what this all looked like before I got started. I've even got the pictures to prove it!) 

On the other side of the room, the sitting area near the window is a much more relaxing place to be, as well. I can easily access all of the books, there's no piles and piles of miscellaneous material cluttering the areas underneath the coffee table, and with the addition of a "new" lamp - rescued from disuse in my parent's room, and given a brand new lampshade to wear - it's honestly much easier to actually read. 

Granted, there is still a little bit of a pile-up near the chair, though nowhere near where it used to be. The Barnes and Noble bag simply holds the contents of tee shirts and sweatshirts ready to be donated back to my sorority, for which I am an alumnae advisor, come the Fall. I'm more than willing to hang onto them for a little while longer, when I know that they'll be headed for such a worthy home. 

And so, my room is finally clean! Ish. Definitely ish, because there's still a ton of junk piled up on my dresser, and I haven't dusted anything - least of all, all these blinds - in, like, over a year. 

But still! I can use all of my bookshelves again, my armchair is ready for reading, and my desk, for writing. I couldn't be more pleased to go into the summer with a personal space ready for holing up in, shutting out the sunlight, and remaining my well-sheltered, hermit crab self. 

Have you made any changes to your space this Spring? What areas of your own have you made into a sort of book nook? Let me know, in the comments below!