I have poor impulse control and I love bright, shiny things. It’s a given, then, that I’m a retailer’s dream. I have come home many, many times–from the store or from the postbox; mail-order is my friend–loaded down with merchandise that I certainly didn’t need, and in many cases didn’t even really want. All too often, I just can’t resist buying something, especially if it comes in pretty packaging.

It happens regularly that I turn out not to like a certain napkin pattern or cream pitcher or set of drinking glasses as much as I’d thought I had when I shelled out the cash for them. I’ve been known to spend money on movies I never watch or CDs I forget about after one listen. And don’t get me started on clothes … successful purchases there are far less common than failed ones. I have entire brand-new wardrobes stashed in various nooks and crannies around the house. Things that look good on the rack seem never to look quite so good on my rack, but once I’ve got them home it’s such a hassle to return or exchange them, so they stay, each item a drop in the sea of regrettable purchases.

But, books. Books are different. I can’t remember ever thinking, I wish I hadn’t bought that book. It’s a good thing, too, because I buy a lot of books. Aside from stuff for my kids, books are easily what I buy most. I buy books I read about in magazines, I buy books my friends talk about, I buy books I hear mentioned on TV, and I buy books I’ve already read but might want to read again. I buy cookbooks and children’s books and self-help books and parenting books and reference books. And fiction, I buy a lot of fiction. I buy so many books, in fact, that there’s no way I can keep up with myself, but still I buy. It’s quite likely that a good number of the books I buy will go forever unread, or unread by me, at any rate. Though I find that disappointing, a book unread does not seem nearly the waste of clothing unworn or movies unwatched. Or, rather, the waste is the loss of the read, and not the loss of the money spent. Instead of thinking, I wish I hadn’t bought that book, I think, I wish I had time to read that book.

I find myself now in the position of having just finished a very good book (David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars, read it at once if you haven’t already), and not knowing where to go from here. Should I continue in the same vein and read the newer Guterson novel that I picked up at the nationwide booksale last year? Or should I work on catching up, finally, with Anne Perry’s Inspector Thomas Pitt? I also have Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky, a book I’m mightily tempted by, but also bit wary of, knowing how hard Holocaust books can be on the psyche. Maybe I’ll push them all to the side and get down, at last, to reading The Grapes of Wrath.

Decisions, decisions.