View Full Version : Bookalcoholics!!!!
We've had kitalcoholics, now who's a bookalocholic then??
I'm terrible for buying books. Currenty I must be averaging 6 books a months from Amazon, not to mention when I pass Waterstones.
Her indoors thinks I have a probelm!!! I tell her knowledge is power.. :wink:
So come on I don't think that I will be alone!!! LOL :lol:
We've had kitalcoholics, now who's a bookalocholic then??
With 7 full bookcases in my front room alone I think I fit into that catagory.....
Ed
I don't have a problem at all. Really, I don't ...
TheViking
25-10-2004, 17:35
Well, me too! :wink: :wave:
Not enough books is my problem....and i have too many that i want to read to chose from!
My name is CLEM and i am a bookalholic.
Me to loads of books More on the way from the Miss's for Christmas I normally give her a book list for Christmas and birthday
I get sent books to read. For free. And I don't have to send them back. Publishers reps knock on my office door and offer me free delights. I can send emails and books arrive. I have even been paid to read books :yikes:
Of course, these aren't bushcraft books, but they're still books :wink:
I too am a bookaholic. I buy many, but check out from the Public library way more than I buy. Here is my favorite quote about libraries.
Those who write professionally must live eternally in humble gratitude for public libraries. What makes libraries invaluable is when they are highly functional. What makes them highly functional is not only the generous appropriations for the purchase of books, but a staff that is able to bring the overwhelming information a library contains to the reading public.
Calvin Rutstrum, A Columnist Looks at Life, Here’s Cal Rutstrum, 1981
Somebody on this site is not being honest, somebody on this site is remaining a little too quiet,
...you know who you are...if Hoodoo can come clean about his knives than you can come clean about books...
:wink:
I'm certainly one.
Which reminds me, haven't bought any in a while...
I have a few knives :-) but my books total to over 2,000 volumes. As an academic, it's a bit of an occupational hazard. :-)
Swampy Matt
25-10-2004, 19:44
I am currently under a temporary ban on book buying. My girlfriend has already tried imposing a 'if you buy a new book, get rid of an old book' rule. I bypassed this using the 'second hand books aren't new books' line!
Do they do 12 step programs for this?
I have a few knives :-) but my books total to over 2,000 volumes. As an academic, it's a bit of an occupational hazard. :-)
Hoodoo, just how big a house do you live in....?
2000 books is pretty impressive. A friend of mine totalled 2500 and then sent them off to Amazon and the charity shop as he is preparing to go travelling. The type of travelling where you sell all your belonging and possible never return!!! I'm jealous..
Maybe everyone should write a top 20 book list and compare lists. Keep the subject matter to bushcraft and related topics.
What ya reckon?
It's also a test... If you can list off 20 without refering to your bookshelf then you really are a bookalcoholic!!! LOL (Especially if you can recite the top line of page 20 in each book without looking!!) If anyone answers that one then there are a true anorak!!! LOL :biggthump
Hoodoo, just how big a house do you live in....?
Not big enough. :rolmao: That's why I keep a lot of books at my office. :-) To be honest, 2,000 is a pretty conservative estimate. It's probably closer to 3,000. I have a lot of mysteries boxed up that I forgot about. I've been collecting books for over 40 years. Eventually they accumulated into a tidy pile. :lol: I have an office in my basement as well and I can JUST get in and out of it without knocking over a pile of books. The shelves are filled wall to wall.
One of these days I'm going to start reading some of them... :lol:
A couple of my top twenty came as recommendations from Hoodoo...2 right on top are:
Cache Lake Country, John Rowlands
The Dangerous River, RM Patterson
Hoodoo introduced me to these two and was instrumental in my rereads and reevaluations of Kephart's and Nessmuk's Woodcraft and Camping--Camping and Woodcraft.....never can remember which is which :o):
My other 16 include several of Calvin Rutstrum's reflective volumes (The Wilderness Life, Once Upon a Wilderness, Challenge of the Wilderness/A Wilderness Autobiography (counts as one), Chips from a Wilderness Log, and Backcountry), certainly Rutstrum's New Way of the Wilderness and its soft cover predecessor Way of the Wilderness (2 editions), a few of Sigurd Olson's early books (Singing Wilderness, The Lonely Land, Listening Point and Runes of the North ), Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It, and Other Stories, Patrick McManus humor collections, especially A Fine and Pleasant Misery, Aldo Leupold's Sand County Almanac Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire, and the Conover's Winter Wilderness Companion.
Most of these get a good reread fairly often.
Here (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/Author=Rollnick%2C%20Stephen/202-6828245-4183840) are some of my dads books. Most of my closest reletives on my dads side are writers (or similiar!) my grandmother was a writer for the new yorker, my grandfather is (was) a book binder and my uncle is a journalist in the U.N.
I can't find the thread i started about this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140272917/qid=1098733477/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_11_3/202-6828245-4183840) book, this is an absolute must!!!
Jake,
Given some of my behaviours this one may be quite useful...or a bit too close to home........
Rapid Reference to Lifestyle and Behaviour Change Stephen Rollnick, Chris Dunn
Is obsessive knife purchasing covered?
Is obsessive knife purchasing covered?
I don't believe there is such a thing. I think most people just lag behind. :rolmao:
Credit for Dangerous River has to go to Jimbo. That's where I first learned of it.
Cache Lake is certainly in my top three. The Tao Te Ching is right up there with it. For me personally, perhaps the most influential book I ever read was Animal Physiology by Knut Schmidt-Nielsen. :lol: It made the difference between me being a microbiologist and a physiological ecologist. Personally, I think everyone should read it, but then, that's just me. :rolmao:
My Comparative Animal Physiology text (unknown Author) is about the only non-Chemistry text I kept after grad school. I still have it somewhere, I wonder if it was by Knut Schmidt-Nielsen.
books and knives can still work out cheeper thena night out drinking
books that spring to mind
*C++ How to program
*C++ in the lab
*An Introduction to System Analysis Techniques
*skills for success
*sharpes havoc
*sharpes escape
*sharpes enemy
*sharpe sword (a few more sharpe books)
*stone henge
*rebel
*battleflag (lot of bernard cornwall isn't there)
*high hikers guide to the galaxy (and others though non of them are really mine)
*dirk gently books
*zero option
*fireball
*some other andy Mcnab book
back home I have an animal biology book
*greys anatomy (my dads)
*I had the narnia books
My name is TOM and i am a bookaholic! and proud.. i think its one of the better --aholics to be!
i think it is close to the stage of muggin.. beaking in to cars and selling my mothers jewlery to feed my habit!
Schwert, he writes about health behaviour change. So if you feel your knives are damaging your health, get reading!
:lol:
Oh god! Don't get me started on this one! Please!!!
I can't pass by bookstores....
600+ cookery books.
30 gardening books.
10 boxes of sci-fi/sci-fan/thrillers in the loft.
Loads of travel books/phrase books.
A collection of herbals.
Calligraphy books.
Reference books for my plantlore...
Hi my name is Martin and I'm an incurable bookworm. Please help me! (Send any donations to...)
History books,
Books on folklore and mythology,
Books of maps,
Books on language,
Reference books,
Fiction,
Humour
Graphic novels*
Heaven help me, this is worse than confessing about kit!
*ok, comics...
Mattsteel
26-10-2004, 10:54
I'm a big fan of the Sharpe books, and have nearly finished Firewall by Andy McNab. Tom Clancy's books are pretty good too! :o):
HHGG series are absolute musts!
jamesdevine
26-10-2004, 13:01
The day before I got wed I moved my stuff from my perants to our first home. My cloths were in my 50ltr pack, other bits and bobs in a medium sport bag and books came in three large Waven Pipe AJ boxes(these are the junctions in outdoor plumbing outside your house) they are about 4ft square.
:wink:
I have since reduced this to six banana boxes and am currently on cold turkey enforced by my wife. :cry:
James
Tantalus
26-10-2004, 13:11
maybe it is just the way my mind works, but i rarely read a book a second time
in fact i can only think of one book i have read twice and that was lord of the rings
i have a few reference type books and of course the internet
mainly if i really enjoy a book i will give it to someone who i think would enjoy it too
a lot of them end up in second hand stores because i get tired of them taking up space and know i wont read them again
Tant
I must admit to being a bookaholic,
Reference books on Standing Stones, astronomy, bushcraft, ancient civilisations, Scottish history, world religions, castles, nature and folklore are my biggest downfall.
I also have all of R.M Pattersons books, thanks to Schwert's reviews on OMF.
Most of Carlos Castenedas early books and a whole host of others.
Fortunately my wife is a bookaholic as well.
I don't need help, just a bigger house to establish my library in.
Cheers
JFW
Forgot to mention my large collection of electronic books/pdfs and web pages.
Cheers
JFW
Justin Time
26-10-2004, 21:18
No apologies on this one.... I'm a bibliophile and proud...
Sci-Fi +++++
Bushcraft+++
Natural History +++
Scottish History
Politics (Left, of course)
Cookery books +++
Terry Pratchett ( and some Mary Gentle after recomendations here)
Gardening
Loads of work related stuff (even got one by Jake's Dad!)
Modern novels
Scottish Poetry
Languages (teach yourself stuff...)
Military History
Can't walk past a book shop, even when I'm on hols abroad!
Moonraker
27-10-2004, 02:29
The more time goes by, the more I come to realise I brought my books as a way to 'gain' knowledge. Why? Because truthfully many I never read. Maybe it is because I am a sucker for good graphics on the sleeve or just have to have this book or that on a particular subject. I have enough recipes to last many life times :-) ( not sure I get close to 600+ though :shock: ) but again I rarely actually try them. Out of say, 150 cookbooks costing lets say, average of £20 a pop that's £3,000 just on cook books :yikes: That is an aweful lot of decent restaurant meals there :roll:
I actually use around 10 of them all the time. And cook books are just an example.
I realise that by buying books I was literally 'buying knowledge'; if I have a book on the shelf then I 'own' or am 'imbibed' in some mystical way by that books/ authors knowledge. I a sure it is part of the hunter - gatherer instinct and those dusty book shelves hold the 'trophies', the tokens of a good foray into today's urban jungle.
In fact I also see that I do not actually buy books for reading at the time which was it's purpose, but I tend to come back to the book some years later when 'it' is ready.
I am seriously considering selling the lot except for the 5% I read all the time, freeing up 20% of the usable floorplan of the house and using the money to buy a small patch of woodland. At least that way I can recycle some of the forests used in their production :-)
What REALLY p**ses me off though above all else is when I visit the Amazon web site and it states quite blithly on my welcome page:
A S Lisney, make £173.66. Sell your past purchases at Amazon.co.uk today
When they bl**dy well know I spent £10,000 to buy them from Amazon in the first place :roll: :-)
I don't have a problem at all. Really, I don't ...
Kath...... Wanna jump in on this one ?? :lol:
I love books, I have 4 bookcases with allsorts from Native American Shamanism through to Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance Not forgetting that all time bestseller "Best wines for under a fiver" by Rob Parker :super: