Only two or three, sir

"... Not more than five or six, sir—or—or a dozen at the most, sir."

     I could be like Billy Bunter and his biscuits and try to claim that apart from the piles of books looking reproachfully at me while they wait to be read, I have a negligible few on my wishlist with a view to future acquisition; the current tally there is actually 'four'. Four hundred, that is. And eighty seven. In mitigation, some of that number are destined for other people as gifts, and the remainder fall into all sorts of categories - cooking, knitting and the rest - so they are not all 'reading books', but ... no, I'm not even convincing myself! I'm incorrigible, I suspect, though I know I'm not alone in this, and if you are similarly possessed/obsessed you might care to own up in solidarity.

    Books gradually trickle down here, making their way slowly from the wishlist to the Cornflower shelves, but on the subject of actual book-buying - rather than planning to buy - this survey claims that only 57% of Britons bought one or more books in the year in question, and in the US the figure was 50% - though that's not to say that many others didn't borrow from libraries, or read from their already extensive collections (see above).

    To go back to my covetous/acquisitive tendency, maybe this is largely a female trait, as book-buying in both countries is dominated by women, apparently, and this survey for 2007 shows the significance of the romantic novel to the market as a whole, with romance readers (who are mostly women) buying and borrowing more than consumers of adult fiction in general. Love and the ladies make the book world go round, it seems!

Comments

[LizF]

You make me feel so much better that I am not alone!

Now all I need is to find that there are other people who have a similar fatal attraction for stationery and I will be reassured that I am not slowly but surely turning into a packrat!

[yvonne]

Hi Karen,

I agree with Liz, about not now feeling so alone, with this book acquiring syndrome, that we all seem to be afflicted with.

I obviously can't dispute the statistics you site, about women and our romantic tendencies, but when I wrote a piece a few months ago, about the love/hate relationship that many of us have with Mills&Boon, I was amazed by some of their facts and figures, including the fact that 22% of all romantic fiction is purchased by men!!

http://www.fiction-books.biz/my-latest-news-and-musings/mills-boon/#more-518

[Susan in TX]

I just deleted a long rant about why Americans shop over the internet since you all already know why -- it's because the market over here is dominated by large chains with very narrow selections.

I share the acquisition disease with you and have passed it on to my children. They are all just hoping that books stay around long enough for them to build decent home libraries of their own! :) E-readers just don't have that same decorating effect when you're done reading the book. ;)

[Dark Puss]

I am one of the 43% of Britons who has not bought a book (for myself) in 2010. I am not sure what you should conclude about my reading habits from that statistic although the use of Baysian priors is advised in your analysis.

I wonder if you have any evidence to suggest "women" are more acquisitive than men; I certainly don't see any a priori hypothesis that should lead to than conclusion.

What interests me more is why you have sought your readers' advice on how to deal with this pile but as far as I can see you have not acted upon any of it. Now that sentence is going to read like I am being negatively critical and I'm not - surely if you want 400 books in the pipline (subtracting 87) then why not, my interest is in why you posed the "what do I do now" question to us some months back.

[Dark Puss]

Dear Yvonne, why the ! at the end of your post? I hope one day someone will define this infamous romantic fiction so that I can know if I amone of those 22% of men who buy it or not. One might consider many of the works of Colette (and I have all that are translated I think) as "romantic" and maybe you might not, but anyway I'm a great fan. OTOH I have never read a "Mills and Boon" and probably more fool me for not doing so. They are I think classified in my public library seperately from "fiction" so my occasional random selection is never going to hit one of them.

[Merilyn]

Any shop with the slightest look of having books inside I'm in.I have even got more addictive since visiting blogs. Lots of book I can only get on the online. There are fewer and fewer independent bookshops about. I have books in every room of my house! Not only fiction but cooking, knitting, patchwork and those eye candy home and country books. Its nice to know so many others have the same addiction.

[Claire]

You are a comfort to me Cornflower!

[Cornflower]

Yes, I'm stationery-mad too, Liz!

[Cornflower]

That is surprising, Yvonne.

[Cornflower]

I agree with you about the effect of books in the home, Susan, and I wouldn't want to be without my walls of books here.

[Cornflower]

RNA statistics made the case for the dominance of women in the book market, and I note similarly acquisitive trends in female buyers when it comes to yarn - typically, knitters have far more than they will foreseeably use, but their collections (as with books) give them choice. There is comfort in knowing that you have a well-stocked fridge/larder, plenty to read or refer to whatever your mood or interests, lots of supplies at hand with which to make things - for me, at least, that is so. It likely has to do with nest-building instincts.
Re. your final paragraph, if you can find the post in question I'll try to answer your point and see how it relates to this one.

[Cornflower]

We aim to please, Claire!

[Cornflower]

I agree, Merilyn - to have lots of books of all sorts in your home is to be surrounded by a wealth of possibilities and inspiration, and I couldn't bear to be without that.

[Barbara]

I agree that it's a security thing. Just as we like to have a store cupboard 'just in case' I like to know what I'm going to read next and that I won't run out of either books or yarn.

[Rosie]

We live in France and stock up on paperbacks from a hospice shop on the occasions when we drive back. Last time we came back with about 50. The reaction from the assistants was 'you're not going to read all those are you?' and 'do you have a shop?'.
Today we are looking through the leftovers to see what we are really not going to read so that we can recycle some to a local book sale and make some room on the shelf for the purchases from there!
Never enough room on the shelves :-(

[Pandora]

A room without books has no soul.

[Nan]

"There is comfort in knowing that you have a well-stocked fridge/larder, plenty to read or refer to whatever your mood or interests," This is it, exactly. I like to know that when I finish a book at ten o'clock at night, I can find the perfect next book by just walking around my house. I ache with the pleasure of looking at my books.

[Ros]

Genre romantic fiction is generally defined as fiction in which the main focus is the relationship between hero and heroine (other plot elements may exist, of course, but are subsidiary to the romantic relationship) and which has a happy ending (i.e. hero and heroine happily together).

Other books may have romantic elements but if the focus is elsewhere or the happy ending is absent, then they will be classified as 'women's fiction' or some other genre as appropriate.

[Ros]

Yes, although I think you have to be careful because of the dominance of the romance genre and, in particular, category romance. A lot of women subscribe to the Harlequin/Mills and Boon series and are sent 8 or more books every month. But very few of those women will keep all those books. Mostly they'll go straight to the charity shop or the recycling bin after a single read.

[Dark Puss]

Thank you Ros. I suspect most of what I read would not be thus classified because they will fail the "happy ending" requirement. I don't myself subscribe to the belief in a genre called "women's fiction" or "men's fiction", but no doubt you will be able to define these for me too.

[Danielle]

I'm definitely one of that 50% statistic--many times over I'm afraid. I'm the same with my needlework--I have more charts, floss, and linen that I think I can use in a lifetime, but if you don't buy them when they are released they go away and the secondhand market for these things is insane--far too expensive in most cases. I may not read a book when I first buy it, but I will get to it when the time is right and like Nan I am never without a good choice of books when I finish one.

[Ros]

Someone once explained to me that genres exist mainly for bookshops, so that they know which books to shelve together. Obviously, superior independent booksellers override these rules and make more interesting shelving choices.

I think there are some kinds of books which demonstrably have greater appeal to women, though of course this is not an absolute divide.