Book Junkie on the Road

If ever there was a more inappropriate habit for a full-time RVer to have, it is the accumulation of books. This is a lifelong habit of mine, and I've spent far too much money on books over the years, even though I almost always bought used or on sale. I just had to have all that knowledge at my fingertips. I can tell you that it has made for some hellish moves.

I've been trying to cure myself for years now, and have actually made good progress. First, I sold hundreds of books on half.com (a department of eBay) and on eBay itself. Book money coming in instead of going out was a huge encouragement. At one time, I had something like 425 books listed at once!

Then, the evolution of the Internet into what it is today has made most of my personal library unnecessary. The hard-to-find idea or information or recipe for which I had purchased an entire book is now, in most cases, easily located by a simple Web search. 

Another freeing development is being able to digitally scrapbook the--in most cases--one or two things in a book which, to me, had justified keeping the book. It is surprising how many books I could happily say goodbye to after electronically scanning just a handful of pages.

And finally, the development of ebooks to the point they are today made holding a library in my hand a real, modern day marvel.

Still, a person needs a few books, and some music, and a few videos, so we decided that whatever would fit in the seven inch deep cabinet under the television would be okay. If it gets crowded, something will have to go to make room for the new.

You can see that it isn't even crammed! Knowing any books or media we acquire has to fit in there makes us very choosy about what makes it into the trailer.

Jan and I each have a Kindle. We just have the low-end ones that display an advertisement when not turned on. We each also have a booklight so we can read in bed without the poorly located head-of-the-bed light glaring in our eyes.

I still am a book junkie, but they're accumulating on my Kindle now.

The kindle will hold about 1500 books. I can remove books from my device if I wish, and they are still available for me to download again from "the cloud."

I've only paid real, actual money for one of those books. Three are currently on loan to me from my home library. You probably have a library card from somewhere, and there's a good chance your library has gotten involved in loaning patrons ebooks. They can be accessed from anywhere and you won't have overdue books; they simply deactivate on your device when your time is up.

The rest of the books I acquired from free sources. Older books, classics, that are now Public Domain books, are readily available for free download (excellent for homeschoolers), and both Jan and I find many entertaining reads via an e-newsletter that we each get every day. You can learn about it here:

 http://ireaderreview.com/

Some of the books in this newsletter are excellent. Many are free for a few hours but will have a price attached shortly. Some have also been published in paper format by big-name publishing houses, some are classics, but many are self-published. The self-published books really vary in quality, and if I see that a book isn't likely to be worth reading, I don't hesitate to delete it. Some of them have been so entertaining that I am very tempted to purchase others by the author. (Which is why they are offered free in the first place.) There are books of various genres listed, including for children.

I am sure there are other such newsletters, but we haven't yet explored them as we have, between the library and the books listed in the newsletter, more than enough to read.