I’ve been thinking of adding a new blog series to serve as sort of a bookish brain dump, where I can share readerly thoughts that don’t quite merit their own blog posts (or that I’m still working out, in advance of their becoming longer blog posts).  Just bits, here and there.  And so: meet Lit Bits.  I won’t be posting these regularly – just whenever I have enough thoughts bumping around the brain to warrant gathering them all up.  Which, at the moment, I do.

You know you’re a bookworm when you start typing “goo…” into your browser and instead of “google,” it prompts you with “goodreads.”

I’m starting to get a little bit territorial about my library card.  My kids have fallen in love with the library and they always want to check out a pile of books whenever we stop by – which we do on a weekly basis, even if it’s just to quickly return a book that’s due back.  I love that they love books and the library, but I kind of wish they had their own card.  Seeing all of their books mixed in with mine when I check my account online kind of sets my teeth on edge.  Plus, their books tend to migrate all over the house and they’re hard to keep track of.  I’m constantly fretting that one of their books will get lost and my account will get suspended.

At what point, if one is committed to a life of honesty, does one admit that one needs another bookshelf?  (I said this to Steve, paraphrased from The Crown.)  I think I might be getting to that point.  The novelty of unrestricted book-acquisition, post-Project 24, has not worn off and I’m starting to amass piles of books all over the house.  Plus, I’ve recently started branching into pre-loved (and sometimes rather rare) books.  I am getting to critical mass and starting to think another trip to IKEA might be necessary.  I have just the corner picked out.  (It’s also the last place that makes any sense in my small row house, so I either have to slow down on the book-buying or… move.)

Do you ever have major non-buyer’s remorse?  I thought about buying Christabel Bielenberg’s The Past is Myself when Slightly Foxed published it, but I couldn’t get past the confusing title.  Now it’s out of print (they publish in limited editions of 2,000 and once the run is gone, with a few exceptions, it’s gone) and I am wishing I had bought it.  Not just because the gorgeous eggplant purple cover would have looked so nice on my Slightly Foxed shelf, but also because I am having this huge urge to read nonfiction about ordinary people living under totalitarian regimes lately.  (I’ll leave it to you to figure out why.  #RESIST)

I think there’s a longer post here, but I’m getting a bit sick of having reading goals.  Aiming for a percentage of my reading to fit a particular criteria is starting to make reading (a little) less fun.  I like tracking my books and I feel good about my commitment to read diverse voices, but at the same time – my life has so little fun in it right now, that I wish I felt a bit freer to choose whatever I wanted to read, whenever I wanted to read it.  Something to think about.

How about you?  Any bookish bits on your mind?