Hello :)

Hello, my name is Kaya, and I am also an addict :)

My biggest temptation is the sale table at our local library. I cannot for the life of me pass up $1 books and usually come away with two or three (or four or five or six) each trip. Which is once a week since I take my daughter every Friday for story time. It was actually much worse a few years ago when I worked there part-time shelving books. I was the one assigned to check in and table the donated books as they came in. Funny, quite a few never seemed to make it to the table!

I also am a lost cause every time I go into the local Goodwill and Salvation Army stores.

I do buy new books as well and belong to the History Book Club and the Mystery Guild but just not quite as often.

Fortunately, my hubbie and daughter are also avid readers and I come from a family of readers so my fiendish behaviour is generally tolerated.

I currently have several in the 'being read' stage:
Non-fiction is General George Washington: A Military Life, mystery is A Dash of Death, fantasy is a re-read of Outlander and several cookbooks. My daughter and I are working our way through the Magic Tree House books by Mary Pope Osborne.

I look forward to meeting other junkies!

Nice to have you join. I secretly harbor a love of children/youth lit - I plan to never grow up. My family has always been big readers, you couldn't sit down at our house unless you moved a stack of books or craft material. Three of my four children are big readers also.
Cookbooks are great too. I have a very old one that tells a new young wife how to set up her kitchen, including the dredging bin. It talks about how the clock is her friend so that she can have a good meal ready for her husband when he comes home from work. That always gives me the giggles.

"I have a very old one that tells a new young wife how to set up her kitchen, including the dredging bin. It talks about how the clock is her friend so that she can have a good meal ready for her husband when he comes home from work. That always gives me the giggles."

I've seen one along those lines as well - very funny reading - and very sad to think that our moms and grandmoms were held to the standards they were! I'd be in big trouble ;)

I also adore young adult lit - my daughter is 7 1/2 and loves books. It is great fun to introduce her to the books I loved growing up now that she's getting old enough to enjoy them. I have been collecting Nancy Drew books for her since she was born and she's just about ready for those. Although there are quite a few of arcane references in the early ones to things she's never heard of so those will require some explanation on my part.

I also collect children's fairy tales books for me for the art. I adore lush illustrations.

I have never been able to get my children into the Five little Peppers for that reason. They don't want to hear explanations of button hooks, and blacking the stove, and the idea of making coats from old sacks. I feel sad that they are missing some of the books I have loved.
I have all the Nancy Drews except book 16, in the old format. I thought I was getting it on Ebay and it turned out to be one of the re-written versions. My aunt took them to her house to store before my last cross country move.
Did you read Trixie Beldon? Book 1 was the first book I ever read. I was a pre-schooler and spending the night with my cousins. My aunt handed me one at bed time, and said maybe I could try it and look at the pictures. I was so hooked my mother couldn't buy them fast enough.
When I started school I was quite disappointed that the reading book was Tip and Mitten. Where did they keep the mystery books?

Most of my Nancy Drews are later editions but I do have a few of my mother's copies - original printings - not sure if they are first editions or not. I need to get those down and add them here as well. I also have a few of her "Marjorie" books - Marjorie's Busy Day is the only title that comes to mind right off.

Somehow I missed Trixie Beldon but I'd love to read them now. I read lots of Bobsey Twins, Little House and some series about some children that had something to do with boxcar in the title. Can't recall right off what those were. Also some of the Narnia books.

We had a really hard time getting our daughter to read even though she loved books from very early on. We started homeschooling in January and since then she's gone from reading on a first grade level to a third grade level simply because I'm letting her read books she enjoys and not the "lame" (her word) books they were reading at school.

Heading off now to her swimming lesson - talk soon!

Yes, i was a Bobsey Twin fan back in the day. I only like the original Boxcar Children book. The rest of them were "lame" as your daughter says.
Getting my youngest to read,,sigh.
Before we moved he was homeschooled by my good friend and was starting to improve, but since re-entering public school last spring it has been downhill. We have an appointment for testing tomorrow. Have a great weekend.

Good luck tomorrow with the testing. We had seriously considered having our daughter tested - I was convinced she was dyslexic for a while. Also, she couldn't seem to grasp phonics at all and I had accepted that we would have to teach her to read by sightwords only. She was quickly falling behind the rest of her class.

However, within just a month or two of homeschooling, she suddenly was sounding out words like a pro. I loved her teacher but I really believe that my daughter just required a different approach and needed to arrive at things in her own time.

One thing that has helped her considerably, other than reading books she enjoys, is playing computer games. She is an animal fiend :) and so I bought her Zoo Tycoon. She started sounding out words I would never have imagined because her Dad and I refused to stand by the computer for hours reading everything to her. Yes, she is stubborn, too.

Hope you also have a great weekend!

*stands up and clears throat*

Hello everybody. My name is Kell and I am a chronic life-long bibliophile. I have a serious book habit of anything between 2 and 5 books a week - I practically devour them. My habit is so bad that my hubby has placed a book embargo on me till I'm made a serious dent in my mountain of unread books. It hasn't actually curbed my addiction, however, and I keep sneaking new books into the house.

I'm a big fan of such authors as Terry Pratchett, Kelley Armstrong, Simon Scarrow and Christopher Brookmyre, and I adore historical fiction and satire. I've recently branched out and included classic fiction to my repertoire and am always joining challenges in order to expand my reading horizons.

Hi, Kell.

Be brave. You're not alone. ;)

I keep trying to place myself under the same embargo and I could quit if I really wanted to. I could. Really.

Of course, we're off to the library again this afternoon so I'm sure I'll have to log in this afternoon and confess.

I've not read any of Terry Pratchett's work other than Good Omens with Neal Gaiman but I laughed for days over that one. My copy has disappeared somehow but I really must replace it. It was too good not to read again.

I loved Good Omens. I would probably have never read it but had run out of things to read and my son loaned it to me. I laughed and laughed, and it does stick in your mind.
I haven't read the others.
I suppose the advantage of not having a husband currently is that no one can set limits. And of course only the cat to keep me warm at night.
I have two orders from Amazon I am waiting for. I can't even remember what all I ordered. One of them was The Book Thief.
My sons testing took 3.5 hours. Good thing I went ahead and left to do stuff. So I guess we are leaving shortly for out of state for the races. I should get a lot of reading done there. Not sure since I have never been before and I might like it.

Hello, my name is bookladykm and I'm a biblioholic. I used to sneak books into the house and hide them under the bed...or put them in the bookcases and pretend innocence, claiming they had always been there when asked by suspicious friends and relatives.

I have finally been able to step up and admit that I have a problem. In the past, there was a suffocating need to POSSESS books...in cloth. As expected, it was difficult to meet expenses and obligations when the new releases shelf called or the re-released hard bound classics revealed themselves to me.

Today, it is with relief and some melancholy that I proudly profess my latest accomplishment: the long wait for trade paper. Yes, for a whole year now, I have been able to supress that urge for cloth and only buy trade or *gasp* mass market!! I confess that they don't have the same inpact on the book shelves.

Some of my enablers are (and they are a diverse bunch...I am not particular whom I drag down with me):
Margaret Atwood
The bronte sisters
jane austen
george rr martin
irving stone
john irving
phillip pullman

Favorite co-dependents (both recent and from my dark, lonely past; but is one ever alone with a book? Yes, yes, I know: rationalizing again.):
lonesome dove
seabiscuit a sentimental favorite. My friends became terribly concerned with my Seabuiscuit obsession. I have a literary shrine to this little horse!
out
far pavillions

I could go on and on, which would only result in falling gracelessly off the wagon and heading for the nearest Barnes and Noble (let's see...30 minutes left of lunch hour!) and paying *FULL PRICE* for a hard back. Yes...I feel that familiar rush. Oh my. Better call my sponsor...

Hello, I too am a bookaholic (and I've even attended meetings). I'm a librarian who does not use the library because I must own everything that interests me (and I get a discount at work, which has proven to be quite dangerous to my well being).

I'm yet another Terry Pratchett fanatic, along with Jonathan Lethem, Haruki Murakami, China Mieville and James Morrow

I also have a $40 per week comics habit, but let's focus on one neurosis at a time :)

Paperbacks? To be avoided at all costs - unless it is a really good book that you can't find or afford otherwise. I have passed this addiction on to my children and now on holidays they demand all relatives supply gift cards to Books a Million. The relatives are always shocked, wondering why they can't ask for toys or videos like normal children.
I do have about a shelf of paperbacks. A lovely baby shower gift is to give the book I'll love you forever. Every baby should get started on an early addiction. Of course there are those unfortuante babies whose parents are not readers. I can admit I am not the worlds best parent, but I did read my children to sleep everynight, and they still like me to read at loud.

Hello, I am a bookaholic and I am even studying to be a librarian so that I can be around books 'legally'. I mean, it's my job...I want to be a good employee. ;o)

I am excited to see a group for people who love books. I come from a family of non-readers, so I am not entirely sure how I contracted the addiction. I was the only child that I knew who would beg her mother to take her to the library (to this day, if I mention a library, there is a unanimous groan from my family). Then, I will diligently count up my books so as not to surpass the limit of books that could be checked out at one time. Currently, I live in an area that allows 50 books at one time and I can hesitantly say that I have often come close to that limit. (blush)

Hi, Shenoka! You do have it bad, don't you :) Sounds like you'll be a perfect employee. I used to work part-time at the library shelving books. To this day, it was still one of my favorite jobs.

Glad you joined us - we're here to help (sort of)!

Not really help. We are more like enablers. We actually encourage your addiction.

There is no such thing as too many books.

Hello, my name is Kelly and I'm addicted to books.

I have been delightfully surprised by my local Goodwill. Usually a repository for thirty year old volumes of Reader's Digest anthologies, the local Goodwill has become a pretty reliable source for good finds. Once a month, they have a half-off everything sale. At the most recent sale, I came away with twenty-five books, mostly trade paperbacks save for the three hardback first editions, for a measly $30. My teenaged daughter is an avid reader as well. And now that I am homeschooling her, we have even more books coming into the house.

For years, I carried a kind of puritan guilt over buying and owning so many books. I've probably traded away at least four times as many books as I currently own. I got over the guilt and now just buy more bookcases.

I have modified my habit a bit. I do still buy mostly used but I no longer buy at the used store that stamps the inside cover of the books. I don't like that. Also, I set an arbitrary limit and won't spend more than $6 for a used fiction or more than $9 for a used non-fiction. This has helped cut down some on the impluse buying.

Here's a thought that sums it up for me:

A drug habit would be cheaper than my book habit.

bookladykm, I think you have summed it up quite well :)

i know this might be completely out of line,

but i often find myself scouring garage sales for old penthouse forums. does that count? can i join the club?