Money, she don't like me.

As someone with poor impulse control and a love for pretty things, I have accumulated a lot of books. Books are pretty, smell good, bring the promise of self-enrichment and personal growth *and* they are easy to share with loved ones. Even easier to share than cookies (I mean, how many times can you share 3 cookies? Not as many times as you can share one book).

My books are heavy and dusty. They are stacked haphazardly and tightly in teetering piles. They occupy various satellite locations throughout the house where they are trying to farm and propagate their own bookshelves. Many of them have good intentions, like trying to teach me more about natural foods, home gardening, canning/preserving fruits and vegetables, learning more about the classics, understanding better what my mom likes to read. There is a good intention in every book on the shelf that I haven't read. Oh, which brings me to my point: I haven't read them.

I've read most of them. Lots of them. A fair and substantial percentage. More than half. But, there are a great number of good intentions that I've neglected when I came across a shiny new book somewhere else. Have I mentioned that books are pretty?

My bookshelf and my bank account have both reached critical mass. Neither one can bear any more frivolous literary expenditures. I can't physically accomodate any new books until some are removed, given away, sold, donated to the library. And I'm not against selling books - I've heard of people who felt otherwise, but maybe they are also the kind of person who's read all the books on their shelf. But how to decide whether or not to sell the books I haven't read? Doing so would curse me to pick up a different edition of the same story on a sale table within two years, guaranteed.

The obvious solution: read them.

No new books. No new bills. Read more, save money, someday make room on the bookshelf for something new. And pretty.