And we have another Library Goblin post to make! This time brought to you by the fact that a) September is library card sign up month and if you have one already, it's a great time to check to make sure that it's still valid and b) we are living in the timeline where a limited number of people are out there trying to ban a shitload of books based on no information. Also the person I reblogged this from and the OP are both great so let's get some more eyes on their posts and have a fabulous day of it all.
So obviously I have nothing to say but praise for the original post so what could I possibly have to rant about (other than a small but annoying group of people deciding they want to ban everything that they've never read because thinky brain gets hurty when feelings are felt)? Well, today's little goblin screed is something I have been seeing a lot of over the last few years and I am on a mission to try to help have a conversation about it. It's an issue that every books lover probably has and it's only gotten worse in the last few years as we factor in influencers and various other means of getting us to lean into the stuff that makes us feel better. Of course, I am talking about BOOK HAULS!
Now this is where I am going to pause for a second and reassure you that this is not where I get on your case and tell you that you should never buy anything again and capitalism bad and you should be ashamed and blah blah blah. We all know that capitalism is bad and this is just another facet of it. That said, we are all here in the same bad swimming pool and I don't think it's productive to try to punish anyone for doing what you are being asked to do at literally every turn, especially because we all know it can feel good to get a book. The problem is that we need to have a chat about when we start buying ten. Or seventeen. Or forty. Or when we arrive home with a negative bank balance and no idea where we are going to put the new books we have added to our home libraries. Book hauls can be exciting and fun and they do a lot to make us feel good about who we are supporting or what we can look forward to or how it's so thrilling to escape into the world of the books we just bought. The thing about this though, is that it opens up two important questions for us and I don't always think we are getting to the answers of this. (I know we are drifting from libraries here, but I promise I'm on my way back there. Trust the journey, friends. The ADHD takes us through the scenic route but I promise there is an end point on the way!)
The first question might be the most obvious one, but it's still important for us to ask: when are you planning to read these books? With one book you picked up, it's easy enough to decide that you want to read it right away or put it aside for when you are ready for it. And there's nothing wrong with this. I am a notorious mood reader and I will absolutely pick up a book I want to read but save it for a specific season or when I know I am going to want to dive into it fully. The thing is that these are easy things to do with one or two books. Ten gets a little more difficult. Forty is hard to figure out even where to put them, nevermind when you are going to take the time to read that much. Maybe that's forty poetry books and that will take you a week, but a lot of haul videos and posts are showing off full novels and non-fiction books. For someone who can speed their way through a book in a day or two, maybe this is nothing to them, but a lot of us aren't that way. There's a reason that most library loans are set at three weeks. The average person might be able to set aside enough time to read in a day to get through a book in that amount of time, give or take depending on what they are reading. If it's the Patterson junk that the OP mentioned, a lot of those readers are going to be able to get through it faster. If it's dense non-fiction, it might take longer.
So what does that mean for our haul? If you come home with one to five books, that's a decent time commitment that you are looking at, though still totally do-able. I will be the first to raise my hand at this point and say that I normally have more than one book on the go too, so it's feasible to get five books in a single outing and still be able to read them in a decent amount of time. If you take up to two weeks or longer for a book and you've got forty to add to the pile, even if you read them two at a time, it would take over a year to get to them.
Again, this isn't to tell you not to grab something for later, but having worked in a library for a while now, I can tell you that there are so so many adults who are not taking the time to read. We've seen a lot of people coming back to the library more as they enter the news, but a lot of people coming to the desk are often there for other things, which is great, but they aren't necessarily reading much of anything. And having that many books doesn't mean you are, in fact, getting a chance to read them. In fact, if you are finding that you have been getting more hauls of books in the last few years, you probably haven't. This has become so prevalent in bookish circles online that people make memes about how they are going shopping for more books while the ones they got before it watch in envy as they go to the bookstore only to come home with the next stack of books that will go on their shelves to remain unread for years.
This actually brings me to the second question we need to start asking and that is: do we like what we bought?
Surely, we had to have gotten only the good stuff if we spent money on it, right? Surely, we thought about it and we knew exactly what we wanted and definitely didn't just buy it because it had a really nice foil leaf cover and we may or may not have heard it about it on BookTok... We've all done it. We've all been here and we've all had this experience of getting to find a book we heard about somewhere and gotten super excited about it only to find out that it was a dud. And with the rise of bookish influencers, it would be a miracle if someone hadn't had a chance to get caught up in the romanticization of the trip to the bookstore. And why wouldn't you? I mean that sincerely. Who doesn't like the feeling of being comfortable and who doesn't really enjoy the prospect of having a lovely reading nook with the comfy sweater and the tea mug and the perfect book on your lap and being surrounded by other books? It's a beautiful, comforting image and it's all the more enticing when we think about what's going on around us. It's beautiful enough that it has the power to compel us to buy more than we needed or even wanted in the hopes of it will feel like we were promised. You aren't bad or wrong for wanting these things, either. Again, we've all done it and that allure is strong enough that it had again developed memes and inside jokes that have attached onto the whole little treat culture.
And this is where we bring our asses back to the library and the lovely original post. Books are wonderful and it is comforting to have them around. I have a lot myself and I am not telling you to forego your own library of treasures. I would be lost without mine, I assure you of that. But a lot of those treasures recently were bought because of what I could find at my local libraries. I have books that I absolutely loved that I just had to have a copy of and I know that I will read them again. And I have taken out some that were so highly recommended on social media that I could barely wait to get my hands on them and I absolutely loathed them. And yes, what a great thing to be able to take a risk free chance on the subversive BIPOC sci fi novel with the trans main character! What a treat it will be to find your next favourite author who you are excited to support the next time you get a gift card.
The thing is that book hauls are trying to sell you comfortable lies and promises that will break the bank and leave you with a lot of books but only a fraction of them you may like and some of them that you might actively end up hating. The library will likely have all of those books and if they don't, there's probably a pretty easy way for you to suggest they get them. A lot of libraries are open to hearing from their community, as the OP said. And you tell them what you like and what you want to see by taking those books out and reading them. If you think they need something more interesting, tell them and help them find those books. And the best part of all of this is that when you do add to your home library, it's going to mean you are adding a book you know you like already.
But if I read it, why would I need to buy it? Here's my little life hack that can help you with that. A lot of times, I will get super excited about something I just found out about and like a lot of people, I want to get it into my brain IMMEDIATELY. Again, ADHD is a mistress that will take us on a journey at a moment's notice and sometimes it decides we need something right now and we really didn't. If I find a book that I want rightnowgiveitomealready and I am forced to wait for a hot minute for a hold, by the time I get it, I may realize that I didn't really want it after all. Or maybe it was totally worth the wait. If it's not new but I have it on the brain and I want to know if it's worth having in my collection, I straight up tell patrons to take out the books anyway. You don't know if you'll like it? Give a three chapters to catch you. You don't have to finish every book you take out of the library. We don't check on you for these things. You like it? Great! You don't know? Also great! You hated it? Perfect. The system works and you can leave that book for someone who does love it. And you never know when you will stumble on a book you might never have thought you would spend money on and find out that it's now one of your favourites.
So if you made it to the bottom of this essay, bless you and may every book you read for the next year be better than you thought it would be. And if you decided to skip to the end of the journey, I'll leave you with the TL:DR:
Skip the hauls and use your library resources. Everyone will benefit.
germansingergirl
blakekathryn
snowghoul
jacobvanloon
theartofmadeline
gummygunk
dailybridgerton
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