I have a bad habit of buying books.  Really it is the only bad habit that of mine that I can think of –unless it is overweening modesty (cough).  The reason this is a problem is that I have no more room for books.  All my bookshelves are full, and I have boxes of books in the garage and under the bed.  My house in Texas has bookshelves full of books, rooms full of books.  Why have I kept them all these years?  I admit it…it is a vice.   I have never been able to rid myself of books…except once when I thought that I was going to move I gave away 19 boxes of books to Goodwill.  I have regretted this rash act ever since.

So I have tried to buy fewer books and check out more from the library.  This has worked somewhat.  Below is a list of books checked out from the library this year.  Looking at the list and how small it is reminds me that this is just a small number of the books that I am reading.  The rest I  have bought or reread from my personal library.  It is embarrassing to look at the list.  Obviously I am no highbrow.  I lean to science fiction and action books.  I have been reading more mysteries also.  The problem with the library is that sometimes I am forced to read a particular book.  They often don’t have the books that I am looking for, so out of a sense of desperation, I pick out something that normally I would never buy or read otherwise.  It’s hard, this habit of mine.  I know it is useless to complain though since I have always been this way, and I really don’t think that I can change.