Why I Won't Buy Any More Books
Wednesday, 13 September 2006. Literature.
A few weeks ago I was looking at my groaning bookshelves, and wondered not for the first time why I have so many? Fear not dear reader, I am not advocating the death of the book and about to suggest you make way for digital downloads... although I am sure we will see a serious move in this direction in the next few years.
I read books quite a bit, I will happily sit down and plough through the new Terry Pratchett novel when it is released, (new novel released in 8 days) and have started working my way though output of the undisputed star of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson.
Anyway, I no longer have so many books, they have either been sold on Amazon, (more about that later), or gone to Oxfam. You see, I have been keeping books and not reading them for too long.
Granddad was superstitious about books. He thought that if you had enough of them around, education leaked out, like radioactivity. - Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead
Reference books go out of date too quickly, and these days it is quicker to dive into Wikipedia, than get the big book off the shelf. If you have ever read a book on computers, you realize how quickly books go out of date.
Obviously there are some books I am keeping, but the vast majority I simply kept... for no good reason really, there were just "shelf pets", taking up space and gathering dust.
The other reason I have decided I won't be buying books anymore is that I took a trip to Farnborough Library recently and was astonished by how high-tech they are now. From home I can search the catalogue of all books, CDs, DVDs, games and whatever else they do now online. Not only that by I can renew my books, and request new ones, all from the comfort of my mac! Now that is very cool, they even email me to tell me when my new books are available collect.
Now you should have realized by now why I don't intend to buy books anymore, the library has them. And they have launched a new scheme, which means that the current most popular books have to be brought back within two weeks, which means there are more of the latest books to go round.
This is all part of my new lifestyle, which involves buying less and making full use of the technologies available. So adios Amazon, and wave bye-bye to Waterstones, no more books for me!
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