Still Feeding My Book Addiction

by admin | December 12, 2025 8:04 am

I learned the other day that the Book of the Month Club is about to turn 100 years old. I mistakenly assumed BOMC had gone the way of the pay phone and the slide rule. But it is still around, offering a curated monthly shortlist of fiction with an emphasis on emerging writers. Good for them.

I first subscribed to both BOMC and the History Book Club while still in high school in the early 1970s. The latter had a compelling introductory offer, something like four hardcover, first-edition books for $10. In return, members agreed to buy a set number of books annually, maybe six. I confess that I gamed History Book Club a few times, quitting once I met the minimum obligation, then rejoining to get the introductory offer once again. Since I was a poor college student who moved often to save money or improve our rental situation, HBC never caught wind of my nefarious actions.

For both clubs, pre-Internet, I waited with anticipation for a mid-sized envelope to arrive each month with the current offerings. I would scan the catalog, make my picks and mail the postcard back. The book would arrive about a month later. A goodly number of those books still line my shelves.

My book addiction was well underway before I graduated from high school. At 19, in 1974, a friend and I opened a bookstore in Nacogdoches in a tiny, two-story house on North Street, next to t[1]he fire station. (Austin Bank occupies that spot now.) We later moved closer to town and added record albums in the spot where Flashback Café is now, for those of you familiar with Nacogdoches.

The venture was a spectacular failure. We were undercapitalized and clueless. But it was great fun, and I walked away with lots of books and albums. When CDs became readily available in the late 1980s, I sold all my albums to Half Price Books in Houston. But I held on to the books, with occasional purges that coincided with each move. The book addiction has not abated.

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My Beautiful Mystery Companion and daughter Abbie gave me a Kindle Paperwhite for my birthday last August. I have long been skeptical of reading books by anything other than the traditional method: a physical book sitting on a desk, me flipping its pages, or in my lap while on the front-porch rocker when the weather permits. I have never been able to get into audiobooks. My mind starts to wander no matter how compelling the narrator. I look up and realize I just missed the last 45 seconds of the tale and have to rewind.

This Kindle is a game changer. The screen is easy on the eyes, easier to read than most physical books. I first used it extensively on the long plane ride from Houston to Germany. I had been reading Ron Chernow’s recent biography of Mark Twain, a book heavy enough to break a toe if dropped. For a few bucks, I downloaded it onto the Kindle and quickly finished it not long after landing in Munich. Since then, I have used it to read a long biography of theologian and anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed in a German concentration camp. It is ideal for travel. I am a convert, though I usually buy the physical copy as well. Did I mention I am a book addict?

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I am tempted to join Book of the Month Club, just to find new authors. Unlike Amazon, it has actual humans curating the selections. For now, I am going to hold off. The stack of books-to-read sitting in my old wooden office chair that once belonged to The Daily Sentinel is teetering dangerously high.

And if Santa comes through on Christmas, it is likely to get even higher.

Source URL: https://garyborders.com/pages/still-feeding-my-book-addiction/

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