Bookaholics not so Anonymous

Hello, my name is Bob and I am an addict. There are no 12 step programs or meds to pry this monkey off my back, thought I suspect there are many more addicts, in fact I have seen them prowling the shelves, lying on overstuffed chairs their nose buried in there drug of choice.  I am a print junkie and have a $50 a week habit, the bookstore is my opium den, the internet my pusher. I am sure my wife is secretly organizing an intervention, but until recently I had nowhere to run.

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It is fortunate that the government recognizes this addiction to the written word and has provided a form of the clean needles program to us bookaholics – the library. The library purchases the books so we don’t roam the streets looking for loose change or rifle our spouse’s purse for our next ink fix. I can go there and ease my addiction as long as it strikes during business hours and not on holidays or after 8pm.  They even store the precious dope so I don’t; get the weekly too much clutter lecture.  There is a downside, however.

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I am addicted to the books that can be hard to find at the library, food history, current politics, advances in science, the stuff of the text books I first became hooked on In college. The other problem is some junkies are careless. I once took out a book written by Jimmy Carter. Well, supposedly written by him, but either way it was the worst book I ever read and not just because of the inane wanderings of the words within, but because the book had obviously been to a smoker’s convention. In fact it smelled as if it had spent a month in a dense fog of nicotine the reek was so strong. Then there was the mysterious brown substance on several of the pages.  I felt I needed a complete cancer screening after just having picked the book up. I needed to find another source for my next high and did in the form of Bookamn’s.

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Bookman’s is a used book store. I could bring some of my books lying useless and spent and trade them for books others had brought in, fresh reads waiting for their next victim.  I could either get money for my used books or store credit I could use to exchange for books on the labyrinth of shelves in the store. Best of all they had books that I hadn’t been able to find because the drug factories no longer pumped them out to the pushers. That left the internet as the only lure.

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There was also a fix available on the Internet fortunately, Alibris Books. They had used books and lo and behold I could sell my old castoffs as well. Push come to shove I could also click the used books link on Amazon and cut the cost of my addiction dramatically.

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Yes, I am still addicted to print and am hooked but good. It is only to be expected as I have been using since the age of four and the system I grew up on was only too happy to enable my book a day habit.  But I believe of all the habits I have developed this one may have done me the most good and I will never seek a cure.