I’ve made a bajillion self-deprecating jokes about how I can’t be contained, about how poor my self control is, about how much money I spend on books, and … all of that is true.

I began the year off with a new rule: for every 5 books I read, I could buy a new one, and it worked relatively well for, um… a month and a half? So not very well at all.

I told my best friend about it, and she backed me up, and asked: how are you going to keep yourself accountable? And I glibly replied, “I’ll be accountable to you!” and then proceeded to hide my book purchases from her and justify myself every time I broke my promise. It just seems that banning myself and restricting myself just really does not work.

Now, I really ought not to have been buying books during January and…