Go On—Buy Another Book

It seems that, even in the world of book lovers, unspoken rules exist beneath the surface of what can and cannot be done.

I’ve written about them before: dog-eared pages, margin notes, and all the little imperfections that transform a novel into something truly personal. But there is another “symptom” familiar to many readers: the obsessive, loving act of collecting books until they spill beyond our shelves, waiting for the day we open them.

There is a sense of freedom and adventure when we discover a new book we want to explore and add it to the pile. We do not always have a desire to crack the spine immediately. Instead, we allow our collections to grow until, sometimes, we even forget what treasures are waiting among them.

For those of us who love books this way, it’s natural. But the world does not always understand it. There is a growing pressure to own less, to minimize, and to avoid having too much of one thing. Even something as harmless as a bookshelf can become something we feel we need to justify.

And although we may tell ourselves we do not care what others think, we are human. There will always be a temptation to conform. There will always be a desire to appear “normal.”

But this is a reminder that, in the long run, chasing someone else’s version of normal is not sustainable. Those standards are constantly changing. Trends fade. And we may find ourselves surrounded by the emptiness of having tossed aside the things that brought us joy in an attempt to gain approval.

So let this be the permission you need:

It is okay to have too many books.

Even if you do not know when you are going to read them.

Any book lover knows the guilt that rises when we look at a great stack of unread novels. If we dwell on it for too long, it can begin to feel as though we are wasting space, collecting books we may never finish.