Last year I did not buy a book. Not one, for twelve months, having started the year with fifty-three unread on the shelf.
The rules
No purchases, no exceptions for work — indexing copies are supplied so this was less noble than it sounds. Library borrowing allowed. Gifts allowed but not solicited. Rereads counted.
What I learned about the shelf
The fifty-three books were not a reading list. They were a record of fifty-three separate afternoons on which I had wanted to be a particular kind of person. About twelve were books I genuinely intended to read. About twenty were books I had bought because someone I admired had recommended them. The remaining twenty-one were, on honest inspection, aspirational objects.
I read nineteen of the fifty-three. I abandoned six at the usual ninety-page mark. And I gave away twenty-two without opening them, which took about an hour and felt like putting down something I had been carrying without noticing.
The unexpected part
Removing the ability to buy did not remove the wanting. It relocated it. I kept a list of everything I would have bought — sixty-one titles over the year — and when the year ended I went through it expecting to make a large order.
I still wanted nine of them. Nine out of sixty-one. The other fifty-two were, apparently, entirely the product of the moment of encountering them.
What I kept
Not the ban — I buy books again, and I would not do another full year. What I kept is the list. Anything I want goes on it and waits ninety days. Most things do not survive ninety days, which tells you something about wanting that I would rather not have learned about myself.