Morbid Romantic

Book Review & Personal Blog

Even if you are a die-hard fan of the public library system, I’m betting you have at least ONE permanent resident of your bookshelves in your house. I’m betting that no real book-lover can go through life without owning at least one book. So … why that one? What made you buy the books that you actually own, even though your usual preference is to borrow and return them?

If you usually buy your books, tell me why. Why buy instead of borrow? Why shell out your hard-earned dollars for something you could get for free?

I buy books because I want them. It makes me proud to see a shelf full of my favorite books. I love the way that book shelves look, colorfully lined in alphabetical or size order. It’s like chaos and order all rolled up into one. I can’t imagine living in a home without a book shelf and without ample books to read when bored.

True, I could save a lot of money by going to the library, but then the books wouldn’t be mine. I want hard, owned copies of my favorite books so that I can pick them up and read them whenever the whim hits. Sometimes I sit in bed and think to myself, “I’d love to read that chapter again.” If I have the book, it’s a simple matter of getting up, pulling the book out and flipping to the correct page. If I don’t have the book because I’ve returned it to the library, all I can do is long and go without. There’s something really special and comforting about an old favorite, a book you’ve had for years, with a broken spine and dog-eared pages. When you look at a book like that, you know you’ve had a lot of good late nights together with many more to come.

Another reason to buy books is to support the author. If it’s a favorite, give back to the person who wrote it by purchasing it. I want good authors to get proper credit for the excellent things that they write.

It was hard for her to sacrifice happiness. She had so little of it throughout her life that she almost felt entitled to it, like it was owed to her after so long of emotional struggle. It made her feel selfish, but the thought of going back to that place was more miserable than she could bear. As time went on, she tried to stop feeling this way, told herself that she had to mature and get past the immature emotions and the stifling anger that contributed its own ample, significant share of misery.

Sometimes, you have to sacrifice, she told herself. Even then, though you’ve lost, you can be satisfied that you’ve given someone something else. Her brain attempted to rearrange priority. Each time she managed to push aside her selfish needs, she thought in her head, you’re doing what no one ever did for you.

That’s the way cycles are broken.