I’ve always been fond of reading and I think coming to France at a formative age (19) and being denied access to Waterstone’s (it had an apostrophe when I used to go) has damaged me psychologically.
Those wilderness years, grabbing any English paperback I could get my hands on, even inviting friends to stay knowing they would bring the goodies, has left me emotionally scarred.
When Amazon appeared I jumped on it like a druggie on meths, I would like to blame my kindle on this habit but that wouldn’t be fair, even before I would spend evenings trailing through lists of new releases and best sellers. The minute anything interested me – running, blogging, breathing, I would leap in and buy a couple of books on the subject.
The kindle has fed this addiction though, a daily check on the lightening deal, plus a recommendation, a follow up by a favourite author, something mentioned by a friend or in the papers and I now find myself buying books daily.
Obviously you have realized quicker than I did, I don’t have time to read all these books, in fact even if I stopped working and sleeping there wouldn’t physically be enough hours in the day to read them all.
And it’s starting to take its toll on my bank account, in fact I’m expecting a personal thank you letter from Jeff Bezos for my participation in his retirement fund.
Having stumbled across Carl Honoré and the Slow movement the other day, I managed to resist buying his book and haven’t taken my compter away on holiday (this was written before we left, I’m not cheating, honest).
I also decided a non-internet fortnight would be what I needed to break this addiction, and I’m aiming for a month without Amazon.
Now when I think about Amazon, this will spring too mmind instead;
