conversations with my various book selves

       Well, that didn't go well.  Or, it went really well.  It depends if you talk to my budget-conscious side, or my bookaholic side.  Budget side said, let's not buy books until April 1, along doing with C.B James' Double Dog Dare Challenge that says read only my own books until the same date, that I am trying for the first time this year.  Bookaholic me went into Chapters with  a gift certificate received at Christmas, and what did I seriously think the outcome of that was going to be?***Edited to add:  This is how it really happened:  I went into Chapters without the gift card , just to have a tea and browse.  I saw the book.  I left the store because I really didn't plan on  spending any money on books until April.  I kept thinking about the book, and that's when I knew I was going to come back with the gift card.  I went back the next day.  My book self seldom speaks, but when she does, it's like a commandment.*****
I  bought a brand-new book:      

A Year of Writing Dangerously, by Barbara Abercrombie.  Because, Day one opened with "when I'm stuck and scared to death of writing the first line"......and continues with: "Writing holds the possibility that I won't have anything to say, not another word. That perhaps my imagination has dried up and my brain is empty."  That pretty much describes me for the past 6 months, I hadn't been able to write anything but some poetry.  I then realized that I had been resisting one of my characters in the short story I was writing, and that had dammed up all my writing.  This not to put my poetry writing down, it's that writing stories comes harder for me, and I have a lot of anxiety about my writing.  The writer me said one word, 'yes.'

The budget me decided that since it was a gift-card, I wasn't spending any 'money', so it was allowed.

Outcome: my challenge self was really, really happy to see that The Double Dog Dare challenge did not say that I couldn't buy any books, it just said that I promised to only read books that I had on my shelves as of Jan 1/13, or had ordered already.  *whew*!  I would hate to fail a challenge less than two weeks into it!  The hard thing is, how difficult it is for me to not buy books. Period.  I'm definitely a book junkie.

So, having succumbed once, the lure of the second-hand bookstore was pretty well a done deal when I said I would meet my husband there one day  last week when I had two appointments ,so I was off work, and needed to use some time waiting for his lunch hour.  I didn't succumb badly, I tried to make it books I really wanted to read sometime soon.  Don't you like how I can rationalize any book buying? I must be the champion at it.   I came home with the following books, saying to my challenge self that I wouldn't read any until April 1.

The Moche Warrier -Lyn Hamilton
Now May You Weep - Deborah Crombie
Probability Moon - Nancy Kress
The Journals of Susanna Moodie (poems) - Margaret Atwood
Silas Marner - George Eliot
Galileo's Daughter - Dava Sobel

The best?  They were on super sale, so I got the lot for $5.00  And some good book finds!   The Atwood poems, The Journals of Susanna Moodie are hard to find - Amazon doesn't list any for sale at this time.  And a lovely copy of Silas Marner that I have wanted to read  since seeing the movie last year (a rental from the library).

Outcome:  
bookaholic me: 7 all together,   contented
budget me: 2 (Chapters card, book sale)
challenge me: still in the challenge! win
writer me: joyous and writing again

2 weeks into the new year: Jan 15, was when I bought the books at the sale.   *sigh*  exactly how long can I go without buying books? 

So how are you doing with buying books, my Gentle Readers, in this new year?  and do you have conversations with your various selves when staring at books longingly on the shelf?