You know you're a bookaholic when... : All About Romance

You Know You’re a Bookaholic When…

You’ve figured out a way to read books in the shower without getting your book wet.

Looking at your 1000+ books in your TBR pile and thinking, “I have nothing to read!”

You haunt the bookstores waiting for that new release, and the clerks ask you if you’d like to set up a tent.

]]> Support our sponsors You pack all your books for a trip but forget your underwear.

You’re packing for a romantic weekend away with significant other and you give more thought to which books to take than to which nightgown is your sexiest.

The library borrows books from you.

Before you buy a purse you make sure a paperback will fit inside.

You have a purse that fits one hardback, two paperbacks, and a reserve book (just in case something happens to the other three).

You become murderous when you discover a friend lost a book you loaned her.

You put Hershey’s Chocolate syrup on your sandwich instead of mustard because you’re engrossed in a book.

You had your books organized via Dewey Decimal System when you were in grade school.

You put vanilla in the spaghetti sauce because you’re reading at the stove.

Your twin sons’ names are Rhett and Ashley.

Your significant other mutters about life in prison not being much of a deterrent to you since you’d be quite content sitting in your cell reading all day.

You look forward to jury duty because you’ll have all that waiting time to read.

You call in sick so you can finish reading a book.

You can’t pass a bookstore without stopping.

You volunteer to go grocery shopping because there’s a bookstore next door.

When visiting a strange town the first thing you do is check the yellow pages for the location of the bookstores.

When you move you have more boxes labeled “books” than anything else.

The first thing anyone says when they enter your house is “have you actually read all those books?”

You plan a day of shopping around all the bookstores you want to visit.

You travel 100 miles to get good books.

You have to constantly invest in new bookshelves.

You have a path because all the books are everywhere.

Your kids holler from the other room with something they consider a dire emergency, and you say, “Wait until I finish this page.”

You have no idea what’s on television anymore (except for Highlander) because the boob tube has become just another piece of furniture.

You tend to buy frozen, microwavable foods that practically cook themselves so that you don’t lose any precious reading time for such an unimportant thing as feeding your family.

You valiantly try to teach your kids “independence,” which means you want them to do more household chores (so you can have more reading time).

Your car is broke down, and it doesn’t really matter because your favorite bookstore is right across the street.

You’re sitting in the bathroom at 1:30 a.m., crying over the ending of your current read, when you know you have to be up at six to drive 150 miles and spend the day on your feet before driving back.

You read at red lights and get honked at because you were so engrossed that you didn’t notice the light had turned green.

It’s 2am and you think “just another chapter” and do the same thing at 3am when you know you have to get up in 4 hours and work.

You deliberately get to the bus/train station early, or even worse, just miss the bus/train so that you have more reading time.

You start to take several baths during the day because you read in the tub and your kids know this is “private time”.

Your significant other runs into the room to make sure you’re alright because he heard you wailing so hard over a sad read he thought you were dying.

You try reading and walking at the same time.

You don’t really mind if you get stranded anywhere as long as you have enough books while you’re there.

You start haunting your mail box when you’re waiting for a new book to arrive and can’t do anything useful until the mail has arrived.

You start fabricating excuses as to why you can’t go out with your friends when you’re in the middle of a great book.

You dash out and sit in the park and read during your lunch hour (or sneak in a few chapters at your desk).

You start thinking of the characters as real people.

You can always find some money to buy another book even if you can’t afford to buy anything else. When you get desperate you raid the local library.

You leave the country in order to find more books to buy.

Your eyesight goes from 20-20 to legally blind because of reading in poor light.

You miss your stop on the train because you have to finish your current read.

You have to be paged at the local bookstore because your significant other has lost all track of you.

You get a friend or relative hooked on romance so you’ll have another place to get books, but unfortunately it doesn’t work quite right and they start borrowing from you.

You start up conversations with people in the bookstore who just look like they’re dying to read a good romance but are having a hard time finding one.

When you keep a spare book or two in your desk at work, just in case you forget yours at home.

You panic when you only see ten new books out on the shelves at your local bookstore when you know it should be at least twenty.

Scouring the papers for any library booksales or garage sales with ‘books’ in the text.

As I’m sitting here, laughing, reading and realizing that you all are talking about me behind my back. . . tee hee heee heeee. . . .

And thinking. . . looking forward to payday so I can put buying books into my budget and pushing a bill back just a couple of days.

You try to sneak in a paragraph everytime your web browser loads a new page.

You name your children from characters you’ve read in books.

Reader Comments

Readers comments:

Eleanor Kay:
The list on how to tell if you’re a bookaholic is wonderful! It’s probably been there for ages, but I just found it, and it did make me grin. Not laugh, mind you, because I’m afraid it was too true to be funny, but it did give me a whimsical smile.

For me, the problem with bookcases is doubled, because my partner buys books at the same rate I do, so we are constantly rearranging bits of furniture to find more book space. Before we bought our apartment, we really did have a serious discussion about whether we had enough space for books! Not “could we have a child here”, or “is this a good investment”, but “can we fit enough books in here?”

You know you’re in trouble when you see the face of your favourite bookseller light up when you walk in his door, and you know he is planning his next holiday following your purchase. We actually lay-by books with out favourite bookseller. Really sad. Is there a counselling service for people like me??

My problem is that both my partner and I are hopelessly addicted to obscure and therefore expensive non-fiction, as well as the usual run of fiction. We buy it far faster than we can ever read it, because it goes out of print so quickly, so it’s a case of buying when you see it. “Intellectual superannuation”, as a friend of mine described it!

Proverb to live by: Wear the old coat and buy the new book.

Maryanne (redarrow@chesco.com):
This was the funniest article I haave read in a long time. I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes. I had to force myself to stop crying so that I could finished the entire column. I can identify so much with all the tips. When I moved 3 years ago, all of my books were wrapped in newspaper and tied with string. The cardboard cartons were extra sturdy and reinforced with tape so that they would not come undone. I can still see my sister unloading the truck with all the carefully wrapped boxes of books, and commenting on the fact that the box marked kitchen stuff rattled and kept coming undone. Thanks so much for the early morning laugh. It made my day. Maryanne P.S. I did name my son after a character in my favorite book at the time.

The contributors to this list, from AARList, include:

Suzette Lizamore

Susan Cass

Linda Mowery

Cathy Sova

Lori-Anne Cohen

Maudeen W

Juno

Tara Livingston

Laurie Breton

Marilyn Grall

Lisa Wong

Deborah Barber

Tracie Traub

Jessikalyn

Ebonye

Laurie Likes Books

My thanks to everyone listed above. Special thanks to Lynea Anderman, Lisa Wong, and Juno for saving and organizing the comments.

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