Ceri Louise Reads

cw: references to disordered eating

It’s been a while, I realise. I definitely did not intend to take such a long and unexpected hiatus, but life happens sometimes. I’ve been reading lots, mostly, just haven’t had the time or brain power for writing for fun alongside all the other things going on (mainly thesis writing taking up a lot of headspace).

I have been thinking a lot though, about my reading and book buying habits particularly. One thing I realised was that this was meant to be a year of mood reading, to allow myself to read properly for fun and pick up what I want, when I want. The only problem was, I was trying to ensure half the books I read each month were from my backlist tbr, which led to picking up things I wasn’t particularly interested in because they were short, just to meet the target, rather than what I was actually wanting to read. This meant that I would feel guilty about rereading books to carry on a series, or not reading new books that I was excited for because I’d only just bought them. Not ideal.

The second thing I realised is that having a book budget really wasn’t working for me. To be fair, since I started trying to stick to a book budget a few years ago, I’ve always made an excuse to abandon it partway through the year, I just couldn’t admit that my inability to stick to it was a problem with the concept as a whole.

(Here’s the reference to disordered eating, feel free to skip a couple of paragraphs)

I realised that part of the problem was my relationship to book buying had ended up being similar to how my relationship to food would be. I would go through phases of heavily restricting my diet, only to “fall off the wagon” and eat a load of “unhealthy” food and feel guilty about it. Or I’d assign certain food as treat status, for when I was having a bad day, and end up eating a whole massive bar of chocolate in one go and feeling bad about it afterwards.

After most of a lifetime doing this, I heard about intuitive eating and picked up a book on the subject. I realised that my relationship to food was super unhealthy and, following the advice in the book, my eating habits are much better now as I’m a lot better at listening to my body. I could still do with eating more fresh fruit and veg, but I am more likely to be satisfied after a few squares of chocolates these days, and I usually don’t guilt trip myself as much as I used to.

(Food bit over)

So I’ve begun to wonder if my relationship to buying books has been equally unhelpful: putting myself on book buying bans or a strict budget and then guilt tripping myself when I don’t stick to it, or over the size of my tbr. Buying books began to feel like something illicit and I’d feel like I had to sneak them into the house so my husband wouldn’t see. Or I’d decide to treat myself but go overboard buying ten books instead of one.

So I’m hoping that maybe if I the pressure off myself when it comes to book buying, as I did with eating, that my need to buy all the books all the time might die down a bit. I might actually start to read the books sooner after buying them, before I lose interest. I might get through my library books more quickly, and borrow more instead of buying. I might be more discerning in what I buy, and more willing to dnf. I might learn to give myself a break.

So moving forward, I will not be tracking my tbr ups and downs each month anymore, and I will not be doing maths to figure out how much I should or shouldn’t be spending. To be fair, I have started going through my bookshelves and reading the first chapter or so of each book to make sure I still want to read it, and I’m trying to do the same before buying a book too, unless there’s a specific reason for getting or keeping it (eg it’s part of a series).

So that’s where I’m at. Hopefully this will help me enjoy reading for fun a bit more again! And feel less bad about how many books I own…

What do you do to avoid book-related guilt?