Please don’t get me wrong. I love books. I love reading books. I’ve read thousands of books, and that’s no exaggeration. The question isn’t why we read books, but why we buy them. Admittedly, this is a strange question coming from an author who also makes some money from it, albeit not much.
Over ten years ago, I read an article that said the number of books in your house correlates with the intelligence of children. Back then, we had about 1,000 books in the house. And we bought even more books. Every book that I found interesting, I bought, because the theory went that if I buy the book, I’ll read it and learn from it. Unfortunately, I’m interested in a lot of topics. So, I ended up buying many books that ended up sitting unread on the shelf. You don’t learn just by owning a book. And while one could argue that at least visitors might be impressed by the sheer number of books in our library, that’s probably the least important reason to buy books. Even though there seems to be a connection between books and children’s intelligence, just having books isn’t enough.
What’s worse, all those unread books gave me a bad conscience every time I saw them. “Oh yes, I wanted to read that. I should get to it as soon as possible, but right now I don’t have the time.” These unread books became a testament to my impulse purchases. I saw them as a burden. All those reminders of what I should be doing or should have already done surrounded me. On the surface, I might have been proud when a visitor marveled at the number of books I owned, but in reality, I felt guilty because I was only pretending to be a reader. The things you own end up owning you—that saying from Fight Club applies here too.
On the other hand, isn’t having your own library, however small it may be, also a place of discovery? A place where you find a book you bought some time ago because it interested you, and now it might inspire you? Isn’t it even perfectly fine to have a library full of books that you haven’t read yet?
But all those books were money. Some of those books became worthless just a few years after I bought them; I couldn’t get a penny for them on the used book market. They were relevant when I bought them, but they weren’t anymore—for example, books about certain technologies or books by politicians, etc. When I bought most of these books, I had much less money than I do now. It hurt my bank account. I could have considered these book purchases as an investment in my future. But most of them didn’t pay off (though some books did).
Today, with digital books, it’s even worse. Perhaps we don’t see the unread books every day, as they sit somewhere on our hard drive. But every now and then, we remember them.
When I was a child and a teenager, I had a different relationship with books. We didn’t have the money to buy many books. But I had a library card. And I spent a large part of my time in the library. There, you could find books, records, tapes, sheet music, and videos. I’m not sure when or why I lost that connection to the library. Recently, I rediscovered the public library:
- We need to return to conscious decision-making. Not every wish, not every book we see, needs to arrive in the mailbox the next day.
- In Hamburg, I pay €40 a year for a library card, and I can borrow as many books as I want (maybe not all at once, but are you really able to read 10 books in 4 weeks?). You can’t find everything you want in a library, but at least I can find at least 95% of the books I want to read. You can also request that a book be acquired. But you have to be patient. Someone else may have borrowed the book you want to read. But why should a book be so urgent that you need it immediately?
- Our library also offers digital books and magazines, at no extra cost. It’s very convenient, and sometimes you can even start reading something right away.
- If you have children: In the past, we bought many books for our kids (books can’t be bad, can they?). Some books you might still want to buy because they are read frequently over several years (like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which is still a favorite even after reading it 100 times). But many other books are not that important. For the kids, I pay €3 a year, and I could probably even just use my own card for them. But I wanted them to experience the library themselves with their own card. The first time we went to the library, it was like paradise for them. We spent hours there. And we still do.
- Which of the books you’ve read would you buy again? Which books hold important memories for you?
In the end, it’s about conscious decisions. We can buy anything we want, and it will be delivered the next day, with Amazon Kindle or PDFs even the same moment. Everything is just a click away. But books can also create clutter if bought without a real need. The need could, of course, be to have a place where you can rediscover old purchases. A public library, however, helps you slow down and spend less money. And if you fall in love with a book and want to read it again and again, you can always buy it.