My mom is a bookworm. A bookworm with a bad memory. And a credit card.
I obtained at least a third of my book collection by “shopping” in my mom’s bookshelves. She an I had an agreement. If I was able to find multiples of any given title, I got to keep the spare. It doesn’t sound like this sort of thing would happen very often, but I would routinely leave my parents’ house with a shopping bag full of extraneous books- the spoils of my mother’s overzealous bargain hunting.
My mom has been a reader for as long as I can remember. She’s on a first name basis with the librarians and always has a long list of titles she’s waiting to check out. It got to the point where they would call her if there was a new release out they thought she’d like.
As the years went by, our little Chicago suburb grew from a motley patchwork of strip malls amongst fields and farmland to a size where it could support a large bookstore. This gave my mom the flexibility to buy books as well as borrow them, all within a mile of her house. She’s also a sucker for a bargain. Remember Borders? I think my mom bought every bestseller in their 3 for the price of 2 section for years. She bought so frequently that she’d forget which ones she already had and would buy them again. This is how I came to possess such a large swath of Oprah’s Book Club selections. (I have never personally purchased anything written by Anita Shreve, though I’ve read a decent chunk of her catalog.)
I stacked the “doubles” from my mom until the pile threatened to topple. This is NOT all of them, unless my dad is reading this. Dad, this is all of them, plus a couple I threw in just to make my blog more dramatic, K?
I’m not sure my dad ever knew the extent of my mom’s dual purchasing, but he sure as heck noticed the stacks and stacks of books piled on the floor when nothing else would fit into the overstuffed bookshelves. Christmas of 2010 when my parents purchased a Kindle for me, my dad stealthily ordered a second one for my mom. This hasn’t stopped her library habit, but now she buys her books online (much to the relief of the overworked bookshelves.)
I was having a conversation with my mom the other day about how I’d started a blog. It went something like this:
ME: Yeah I started a blog about books and it’s been fun so far.
MOM: I’ve been reading it and I’m so impressed a the number of books we’ve both read! We must have similar taste!
ME: Mom. Seriously?
MOM: What?
ME: You know why right?
MOM: What are you talking about?
ME: Do you have any idea how many books I got from you because you’d purchased multiple copies of the same thing?!
MOM: Hahahahahhaahahahaha
ME: I’m not even kidding.
MOM: Well I guess it’s a good thing I have a Kindle now. They don’t let you buy the same book twice. A warning pops up saying that you’ve already downloaded that book.
ME: Sigh. You know this from more than one experience, don’t you?
MOM: Hahahahahaa! Yes!
Ladies and Gentlemen, my mom. Responsible for my love of reading, though luckily, NOT my memory.
Chuck Kampschoer
I think you missed a few dozen,Sweety! (very big grin!)
wordsforworms
You’re very tolerant, Old Man. 🙂
Quirky Chrissy
I love your mom.
wordsforworms
And she loves you.
Quirky Chrissy
Also, you should go through my stacks of doubles. I think I have the same problem as your mom. Worst part: I haven’t read half of them. And I’m going to sell them in the first garage sale at my future new house.
wordsforworms
Whatcha got in the way of doubles?
Lyssapants
It’s a disease. I think they have 12 step meetings for it.
wordsforworms
I hope they don’t serve coffee at those meetings. My mom doesn’t handle her caffeine well. 🙂
Lyssapants
There’s meetings for that, too.
Kaybee
I used to get books from my mom that she bought, sent to my grandmother to read, who then sent them to me. But, then, after I got a Kindle, my mother went out and got herself and my grandmother Nooks. So now I don’t get to read those books anymore unless I want to buy them myself. Not cool, Mom. Not cool.
Visited you after you found me in the Blog Hop! And I’m so glad because I’m a book-devouring reader. Yay!
wordsforworms
Yay! Welcome! My mom just left me a facebook message today saying that she’d just tried to re-dowload a book… AGAIN. That is the one drawback of the Kindle- there are so few loaners! But my library is now Kindle friendly, so I occasionally get books there too! 🙂
Natalie
I, too, am a book hoarder. I buy all sorts of books and make use of my public library. Eventually, I’ll read all of the books I have purchased 🙂
wordsforworms
Ah, but have you bought multiple copies of the same book? I should do a giveaway where someone wins the triplicate copy of anything I can find in my mom’s house… 🙂 Thanks for visiting!
Natalie
Sadly (or not), I have not. My “problem” differs in that I just buy loads and loads of books and have very little time to read them once purchased.
A giveaway would be fun! You could do some sort of a book tracking thing, too!