Hello books, you are a my budget breaker.

Now in a previous post I said that movies, computer games and books were my three loves. But if somebody said to me:

“Out of those 3, pick one. And that’s the only thing you can do for the rest of your li-”

Me: BOOOOOOKKKKS!!!!!!!!

Books are my first love. I cannot live without them. I will usually have 2 or 3 going at the same time. The book that sits beside the bed, the book that goes into my man-bag (you know in case a reading emergency comes up… Like if aliens invaded earth and the only thing that could kill them was reading from a a book. It could happen! Cmon, Hollywood has come up with more silly things… M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs anyone?) and the one in the drawer at work, on 1 in a gajillion chance that I have a non-busy day (aliens would be more likely).

I may not even read the books I have for weeks on end. But as long as they’re readily available I’m fine. If I don’t have one (or I’ve read everything I own already) I get… antsy. I will start picking up random things and reading them. Junk mail, the back of my cigarette pack (yes I smoke, yes I will be quitting shortly, more on that later), the candy bar wrapper, cans of tuna. Whatever is on hand basically.

I’m not sure where this particular obsessive compulsive disorder of mine came from (there are more… like for instance I can’t stand uneven numbers on my comments section, it irks me, which is why I will usually comment to even it out. Yes I am weird. Yes I have the card to prove it) but all I know as far back as I can remember I was always reading. One of my very first memories is reading Snoopy Encyclopedia’s with my cousin and debating whether or not the word “island” was pronounce “IS-land” or “EYE-land”(basically it was a kids encyclopedia but had little Peanuts cartoons here and there that were relevant to the topics on hand, I still have them in storage somewhere too!). And yes I was the one who was heatedly debating for “IS-land”, I have continued that tradition of being vehemently wrong on many topics ever since 😉

But yes, books. The only thing that I will willingly and gladly blow my budget for. Movies and games, can and do a wait a fair while, I only got Starcraft 2 about a week ago for example, it was released a year ago. And yes I know I blew my budget last week for Harry Potter, but I felt guilty about it afterwards. But say if the new Patrick Rothfuss book came up, I would buy it. If I didn’t have the cash available, I’d dip into my savings. If i didn’t have any savings, I’d even put it on my credit card. Yes. I am willing to get more into debt for books, that is how much I love them.

Current Favourites (and probably lifelong favourites – I treat authors/book series like friends. It may take a good long while before I consider them as “friends” but once they’re in that friend zone, they’re in it for life.) in no particular order… cause if you ask me to choose you might as well kill me.

– David Edding’s Belgariad Series & Elenium Trilogy &  Tamuli Trilogy (the Mallorean is okkkaaayyy)

– Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: Trilogy in Four Parts

– Patrick Rothfuss’ The Kingkiller Chronicles (I want book 3 to come out already!)

– Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Series

– David Gemmel’s stuff (most of his stufff, there were a couple of just okaaay books, but most are worth it)

– J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Septology

– Robert Heinlein’s stuff (granddaddy of sci fi)

– J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy

– Jim Butcher’s Dresden Series and Codex Alera Series

– John Douglas’ Mindhunter (one of the few non-fiction books to get onto the list. I like non-fiction. But most that I’ve read just didn’t have that multi-readability factor to them) 

– Neil Gaiman’s stuff

(Quick calculation, thats 80+ books :P)

– I can’t remember anymore and too lazy to get up and sort through the bookshelf. (It’s all the way over there! *points to a spot a metre away*) But those are just the favourites. Probably twice that amount of books that I just “like” and will re-read on the occasion but never as much as the ones above, and again the same number of books that were once off reads, and will be donated to the local library once I get the chance.

– And then there are ones that I’ve picked up at randomly at friends/ex-girlfriends/random people houses that I walk into by mistake, and enjoyed but can’t remember, and have been hunting for them since.

So now I have a question. Does anyone else have budget breakers? Like the ONE thing on this planet that you will spend money on, regardless whether or not it will blow out your budget for the week/month/year? And food and other living expenses don’t count! It has to be something just for you. Or am I the only one with the will power of a wet rag?