How Amazon lead me back to the library….

I caught myself doing it again the other day: one more book added to the Amazon wishlist – my ever-growing record of books I have fancied in the last couple of years, not enough to buy them mind you, but enough to record their existence. Books mentioned in articles, in reviews or by friends. Books I have looked up in the guise of research when I was supposed to be working. Books that won the Giller or Booker prizes and I kept meaning to read. All of them filed there, a mishmash of interests and subjects, languishing because once filed, they become forgotten. “Oh, I’ve taken care of that interest,” and off it goes. It’s a little like my “to-read” pile which is a collection of impulsive purchases (most of second-hand) that I only ever get through about half of before giving the rest away. Once I acquired that book I thought I needed, I’m done with it, unless I was really very interested in the first place in which case I read it right away.

And even given this habit, I do read at an expensive rate, draining my bank account and filling my apartment with momentary treasures. I’m not after the books simply for the experience of reading them, but for the aesthetic pleasure of touching them, putting them on the shelf, having them become a part of my life’s decor. But while so many books are a good read, there’s just not that much decorating my small spaces needs, not to mention the fact many of them aren’t *that* exciting to look at (despite the fact publishing has gone through a whole “upscaling” of literary packaging in the last fifteen years or so). Now that Brian and I are merging collections in our new house, I’m even more aware of space limitations. I would, quite frankly, like to save the space for those books which are truly “must-haves” rather than continue on with the clutter of keeping everything.

But still, I add to that Amazon wishlist frequently, going back occasionally to weed out those books I have fallen out of interest with, but mostly just allowing it to bloat along the trail of my ever-changing subject loves. Until last week. For some reason I stopped myself Tuesday, torn between my desire to wishlist or purchase. I knew if I wishlisted the book would just go away, but really for the sake of my living space and pocketbook I just can’t impulsively buy every book that sortof grabs my interest. So why put it on a list to buy later if I shouldn’t do it then either? And….. wait, I could probably get this book I’m about to wishlist from the public library – ending the dilemma entirely!

So right there I decided to do an experiment, and pulled my wishlist off Amazon into a Word file. Of 124 books there were five which immediately came off the list in the “why did I ever add that?” category. From there I pulled twenty-two books off that went into the “must purchase for aesthetic, collector or author admiration reasons” category. And then I plugged the rest into the Vancouver Public Library search engine. Only eleven of the titles failed to show up, while eighty-six of the books on my list were listed and available at one of the lower mainland’s many branches. If not available at my closest branch, I could order it to the one nearest me. And not only that, the VPL personal library page has something akin to a wishlist (it purges itself every ninety days) for those so inclined.

It’s really quite remarkable, this library system we’ve got going in our society, a last remaining throwback to pre-commerce days which remains a vibrant and viable institution. Particularly in Vancouver where a healthy attitude towards the library network exists. It surprised me that so many of my titles appeared in the VPL catalogue, some only recently published, some a little bit obscure (I’ve replicated the list below the cut). It surprised me Wednesday when I went down to the main branch to pick up a few of them, how crowded the library on a regular weekday afternoon is, how many people use it. Those things surprised me only because I have gotten so out of touch with libraries in the past decade as the ability to search and purchase books online has risen (along with my disposable income), it seems much easier to have something delivered to home than make an extra trip round to get *free* books instead. Going through this exercise was a bit of an object lesson in just how out of touch I’ve gotten, how much money I throw away every month on that which is available for free.

And so I deleted my wishlist from Amazon right then, making myself a promise that if I took something from the library that I really wanted to own after reading it, I was allowed to make the purchase. And of the twenty-two “must-haves” I will give myself leave to purchase one of those books for every ten I take out of the library. It’s not like I’m never going to purchase a book again (I’ve got a serious fetish for rare and interesting volumes), but I’ve got a new house on the go, and a new commitment to living debt-free (aside from the mortgage). It seems one very easy area to cut a couple hundred dollars per month from expenditures is books. And with libraries all over? Yeah. It’s a no-brainer. I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before.

My VPL Reading List:

Non-Fiction (Amazon List)
When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: Ben Yagoda
The Sound On The Page by Ben Yagoda
Rumi Book Of Love by Coleman Barks
Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John J. Ratey
How Shall I Live My Life? by Derrick Jensen
Literary Theory: An Introduction by Eagleton
A Devil’s Chaplain by Richard Dawkins
No Man’s River by Farley Mowat
Coming To Our Senses by Jon Kabatzinn
The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks
An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain by Diane Ackerman The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology by Robert Wright
40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, Oxycontin, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania by Matthew Chapman
The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind by Richard E. Leakey
The Bible: A Biography (Books That Changed the World) by Karen Armstrong
The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? by Francisco Goldman
Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill
Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War by Jean Bricmont
The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East by Robert Fisk
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
Spunk & Bite – Arthur Plotnik
The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket by Trevor Corson
The Philosopher Fish: Sturgeon, Caviar, and the Geography Of Desire by Richard Adams Carey
A Stain Upon the Sea: West Coast Salmon Farming by Stephen Hume
End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat by Charles Clover
Swimming in Circles: Aquaculture and the End of Wild Oceans by Paul Molyneaux Secret Life Of Lobsters by Trevor Corson
Sushi Economy by Sasha Issenberg
The Lost Coast: Salmon, Memory and the Death of Wild Culture by Tim Bowling
Tuna: A Love Story by Richard Ellis

Fiction (Amazon List)
The Descent by Jeff Long
A Secret Between Us by Daniel Poliquin
Absurdistan: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart
When She Was Queen by M.G. Vassanji
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
De Niro’s Game by Rawi Hage
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
The Master of Go by Yasunari Kawabata
Inheritance Of Loss by Kiran Desai
Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata
The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
Written On The Body by Jeanette Winterson
Seven Taoist Masters: A Folk Novel of China by Eva Wong
No Telephone To Heaven by Michelle Cliff
Deep Play by Diane Ackerman
The Cobweb by Neal Stephenson
A Scientific Romance: A Novel by Ronald Wright
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana: An Illustrated Novel by Umberto Eco
Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse by Stephen King
World Made by Hand: A Novel by James Howard Kunstler
The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt
A Person of Interest: A Novel by Susan Choi
My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey
The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith by Peter Carey
All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well: A Novel by Tod Wodicka
An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England: A Novel by Brock Clarke
The Soul Thief: A Novel by Charles Baxter
Fat Man in History by Peter Carey
Collected Novellas by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Collected Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Love And Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Autumn of the Patriarch (P.S.) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Leaf Storm: and Other Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Paradise Travel: A Novel by Jorge Franco (Author)
Rosario Tijeras: A Novel by Jorge Franco Ramos
Our Lady of the Assassins by Fernando Vallejo
Death in the Andes: A Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa
Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa
Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings (New Directions Paperbook) by Jorge Luis Borges
Blow-Up: And Other Stories by Julio Cortazar
Hopscotch (Pantheon Modern Writers Series) by Julio Cortazar
Spook Country by William Gibson (Author)
The Fifth Child: Doris Lessing
Late Nights on Air: Elizabeth Hay
The Assassin’s Song: Vassanji, MG
Effigy: Alissa York
Through Black Spruce: Boyden, Joseph
Barnacle Love: De Sa, Anthony
Good to a Fault: Endicott, Marina
Cockroach: Hage, Rawi
Boys in the Trees: Swan, Mary
The White Tiger: Adiga, Arawind
The Secret Scripture: Barry, Sebastian
Sea of Poppies: Ghosh, Amitav
The Clothes on Backs: Grant, Linda
The Northern Clemency: Hensher, Philip
A Fraction of the Whole: Toltz, Steve
Unbearable Lightness of Being: Kundera, Milan
The Cellist of Sarajevo: Galloway, Steven