I have a confession to make. 
I am a book addict.
There is absolutely nothing recovering about it.
I adore the feel of books, the smell of books, bookshelves overloaded with books. I LOVE BOOKS.
In many ways, it’s why I became an author. My favorite authors as a teen (no offense, Janette Oke, Michael Phillips, Bodie Thoene, and Frank Peretti) simply could not keep up with my voracious, all-consuming appetite. I read too fast. I inhaled books in hours rather than days. It got so bad that the small Christian bookstore owner would see me walk in and grab the publishers’ catalogs and shoot them across the table to me.
I would salivate over the new, yet to be released books…much as I do to this day.
If I bought the first book in the series, I had to buy them all…though I did peter out on the House of Winslow series about book 35.
I was faithful to tried and true authors, purchasing each new book just as soon as I could, yet open to trying new authors.
I read across genres…but never really developed a taste for science fiction. My apologies to all those who adore that genre.
My TBR pile is ever growing. It seems a book is added the moment (or a bit before!) another is pulled off. It towers and shivers its way into boxes. 
My lending library rivals many public and church libraries. My friends adore me for it. And when I’m done, I donate most of the books to church libraries so that others can enjoy my friends. Even so, my bookshelves threaten to buckle from their burden of books.
I. Adore. Books.
Always have, always will.
Thus said, the unrepentant book addict.
Oh, and have I mentioned I’m raising a future generation of book addicts?
(Please tell me I’m not alone. Are there any other book addicts here?)
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You are not alone. I have a bookshelf full of books. I just need to read them all!!!
Oh to find the time, right, Elizabeth?
Well you are not the only Book Addict in the world as I must confess I am one too well I used to have a book case full of books but as of today my Bookcases are my iPad and kindle and I do have one shelf of print books as I do still like the feel of a book in my hand every now and again.
I still can’t quite make the transition to reading just electronically. I love paper books!
LOL! This is completely me!! I even worked in our public library as a teenager. I am so glad to see other book addicts out there.
That is the ideal job for a book addict!
I have to say – I am also a book addict. I have shelves and shelves of books and tons on my kindle. I have to own (at least my mind tells me) every book in a series and they have to be read in order. My daughter does not have to read them in order and I cannot understand that:). Books are my weakness – I can go without buying other things – clothes, trinkets, etc… but I always have to have money to buy books. Unfortunately for other people, my books also have to stay in impeccable condition. :). I do need to relax on that issue.
I totally understand what you’re saying about books in a series. There is an order that must be followed!
This could be my reply. I’m with you in about everything you said Mary B. Only it is usually my luck to read a book and then find out it is a series and naturally not the first one. Of course that drives me bonkers until I get the others and read them all.
Yes, Cara, I am also an addict–from a family of addicts. My mother was our town librarian. Great post!
How fun! I’ve always thought librarian was a great job!
I’m right there with you. I don’t really like digital books but since I have a bulging Kindle app, I will say that it is easier to dust! ROTFL
Love that! It is easier to dust.
Hello. My name is Valerie and I am a Book Addict! I’m glad to be in wonderful company here. 🙂 Although I have a Kindle full of books, my heart swoons for printed books – the cover art, type styles, weight, feel of the paper, etc., etc. Some days I spend almost as much time reading about books (new releases, etc.) as I do reading books! Thanks for confessing your addiction, Cara.
🙂 I love spine poetry too. You don’t get that with e-books. My bookcases are so pretty with all the spines.
Nope you are not alone. I have atleast 8 to 10 paper books and then atleast 6 ebooks that I try to get through each month. Some times I reach my goal other times not so much but i do read a book or 2 a week.
Love that goal! You makes authors very happy, Kim!
Oh, I hear you!! We are doing the moving process so the double stack of books on the night stand got boxed and shuffled over to the new house. Of course now I have a self righteous moment to enjoy a short stack of BTR but with that comnes the anxiety “will this last?” Unpacking will bring back life as I love it.
Thankfully I am married to a book addict who fights for his own shelf space. Always good to live with understanding people!
I’m married to a book addict, too, and we’re raising four book addict children.
Lifelong fellow book addict here. The last I checked I owned upwards of 700 fiction books, and those are just the ones I own. Who knows how many I’ve read in my lifetime. I just did a major cleanse so that I would have space for the new books I’ve purchased and already my bookshelves are almost full again. I keep a bookshelf in my room for to be read books, which is also almost full. My fortune/life savings is all on my shelves.
The lifetime count would be staggering, wouldn’t it, Brittany!
I too am a book addict and proud of it! I love books so much that I took Library Science in College, worked in school libraries and have worked in my church library for 36 years. We also love book donations as our budget is very small.
Happy Reading!
That is so awesome! I appreciate church libraries so much!
I was the same…my mom read to me do often as a child, I had most of my books memorized. Then I read Little House, Anne, Hardy Boys, all the Christian fiction I could get at the library. Then I moved to classics and devoured those. I have read and reread many of them. I have over 500 books…no idea how many. I have a TBR bookshelf…and I still buy books. I have about 600 on my Kindle. My bookshelves have two and three rows. I gave another book shelf awaiting my hubby to be put together. I treasure them. My daughter is weighing her shelves down now as well. Everyone knows she loves books…now she even has a Kindle of her own at eleven. I plan on passing my treasures onto her. She can start a library if she wishes. 🙂
Rachel, it sounds like we inhaled the same books as kids and young adults! Book addicts separated at birth!
Count me in as an unrepentant book addict, Cara, who managed to raise two more of them. I own more than a thousand for my Kindle which means I don’t suffer nearly as much from shrinking shelf space as I used to.
I don’t want to think how many books are on my Kindle app. the problem is they stay out of sight — and don’t get read unless I’m traveling.
Yes!!I confess to be a book addict. I don’t read a book as fast as you do. I like to savor books when I read them. But I have never stopped reading. My bookshelves look like yours. Yes I donate ones I’ve read, that I don’t label as keepers, to the local library.
Then my husband gave me a kindle fire one year for Christmas and now I have a very large library in it as well. So I go back and forth from my book library to my Kindle fire library. LOVE TO READ!
Sounds like the Kindle Fire was a GREAT gift!
Cara, Believe me ! You are not alone. 🙂
Right now I am looking at my overflowing BTR box by my bed, trying to decide which one I’ll read before I go to sleep… ie if I don’t fall asleep in the meantime, because I’ve taken so long to choose.Lol
I love the image of the overflowing box. I have so many it’s crazy!
I could have written every single word just like yours. I’ve run out of bookshelf space and now have so many stacks in my bedroom they threaten to tumble over (and they have a time or two).
Gail, I can so picture that. Sounds like we are sister book addicts 🙂
I am also a book addict. You are not alone.
YES, I’m a book addict! I have over 1,000 books on my Kindle; I have a Bookmobile request list on a Word document, & then have to figure out WHICH 10 books I’m going to request @ each Bookmobile visit! I’m in my 60’s & still have some of the books my Grandmother gave me – to bribe me – to practice the piano when I was a child! (the book bribes worked-I play keyboard at my church! LOL!)
Those books from your Grandmother sound like a treasure. How wonderful that you kept them!
Cara,
Another book addict here! 🙂 I’ve filled 2 huge bookcases with double rows of books, and there’s another overflowing shelf in my closet stacked 3 deep. Not to mention my Kindle! Plus the dozen or so other shelves crowded with books belonging to my parents and sisters (they raised a trio of book lovers :), the regular library visits, and the tipsy stack of TBR books by my bed. 🙂
Glad to meet another Purdue-ite here! I’m in the College of Liberal Arts at Purdue.
Oh, I’ve double-rowed, stacked, and tried all kinds of tricks, Shirley. I can fully imagine your bookshelves.
Yes, I am a book addict. I hope it counts, now I am into ebooks. I live in a very small apartment for seniors and don’t have room for a library. I have three Kindles and read from all three.
Ebooks absolutely count! 3 Kindles. That’s awesome!
Yup, I’m definitely a book addict too! I can never keep up with all the books I want to read. Especially now, there are so many wonderful writers like you for Christian fiction! We have four shelves spilling over with books- and that’s just the Christian fiction, I won’t even go there with all the reference books we’ve got… My books make the rounds too- they get lent out to neighbors & family members. I’m starting to learn how to let them go too, trying to donate the ones that I probably won’t read again, but that part is hard for me! I love being surrounded by books.
Isn’t it amazing how Christian fiction has grown. I love it!
Me too! And I always get books for my grandkids for holidays.
Hi Cara! I used to think I was alone in my book addiction until my New Yr’s resolution in 2012 was to read only Christian fiction for a year. Then I found you, Lisa Bergren, Dan Walsh, Mesu Andrews…I could go on forever! Through all of the Christian blogs I started following I found I was so very not alone. In fact, I found people who just might even have it worse than me! Since I bought a Kindle in 08/2012 I’ve accumulated over 900 books in my Amazon library, I’ve bought three 7 ft tall bookshelves that are overflowing, and keep buying more books knowing full well that I already have over 100 books in my TBR pile as it is! I love the smell of books, especially in libraries. If they made an air freshener w/ the scent of a library or books I’d buy them out!
Kristen, you definitely qualify. I love it!
You are definitely not alone, Cara!! I am a book addict and proud of it. My husband always jokes that I can’t visit without at least visiting one Half-price bookstore. Love to find book sales and always on the lookout for new bookshelves at garage sales. Need more books! I pray there is a huge library in heaven with all the books published.
Book sales are awesome for readers!
I have lots of books and I’m proud of it! I have a e-reader..but I think that I still prefer paperbacks ( and hardcover ) books.
Great post! =)
Thanks! So glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for stopping by!
I am a fifteen year old and I am absolutely addicted to Christian fiction. When I come home from our public library
(Which is so good cause it buys any book you request), with my arms overloaded with novels, my family groans. I also have a bad habit of getting so addicted that I stay up into the early hours….
Keep up your good work 🙂
Savannah, that is exactly how I was at your age. Many months as a teen I read 30 books in addition to school work.
Definitely a book addict and I still love the real thing. I have six bookcases full and now have books in decorator baskets in most rooms, grouped by genre for easy locating. Even though I have an e-reader, with numerous books, it is often the last thing I go to because I just can’t look back as easily as in a paper book. I am beginning to realize the truth in a sign I once saw – “So many books, so littel time.” Enjoyed the post.
Betty, I am so the same way. I’ll read an ebook if I have to, but please — give me paper 🙂 I’m so glad you enjoyed the post. Thanks for stopping by!
Best job I ever had was working in a university library making the conversion from Dewey decimal to Library of Congress organization. I loved spending time “in the stacks,” as they called it. I read somewhere that a scientific study found there is something in the smell of old books that releases endorphins in the brain and physically alters your mood…and I believe it!
Wow! That would have been a challenging (and fun) job.
You are not alone! I love books! I wished you could go to My Books on my Pintrest Page! I have all of Gilbert Morris’ books! I read everyone of “The House of Winslow”! I loved them! Oh so many books & so little time! My TBR pile would be so high if I stacked them up!
Sounds like we’re book addict sisters 🙂
I’m a book addict and the only one in my family who is! No one in my family or my husband’s family have readers. I hated reading when I was a kid and couldn’t sit long enough to listen to a story. Didn’t start reading until the late 70s. Now I have over 5000 books and my kindle fire is running out of storage. I collect cookbooks, too. Don’t know what I’m going to do if I ever sell my home and move into a smaller place. If it ever happens, I hope I have a spare bedroom because I’m going to need it for my books that I will be keeping and also for my sewing machine and computer.
Oh, I know your pain. Moving all these books is a bear, but even though I give so many away, I always have more.
I am a book addict too. Your description sounds just like me! I have an evergrowing list of TBR books! I love books!
I am quite the book addict myself! I love books and read whenever I get the chance! I really enjoyed reading this blog. 🙂
You are not alone! I am a book addict too