In case you can’t tell from my other posts, I am completely obsessed with books and reading. I will happily preach the benefits of being a bibliophile and defend the importance and benefits of reading. Today, though, I thought I would write about those “misfortunes” (very tongue in cheek, of course) that readers everywhere can relate to.

So here are the misfortunes of being a bibliophile:

1. Not a birthday, Christmas, or spring cleaning season goes by without someone in your family† hinting that you need to pare down your book collection. It does no good to try and explain that asking which books you want to get rid of is like asking which body part you don’t particularly want to keep.
2. Having to eventually purchase all your own books, because no one will buy them as gifts for you anymore.
3. Trying to surreptitiously wipe tears or smother snorts while on a train, at work, in class, or other public place when a book gives you all the feels.
4. Sleep or one more chapter. Sleep or one more chapter.
5. Seeing people on public transit reading a book that they seem to be enjoying but you can’t see the title, no matter how covertly you crane your neck to try and see it. But you HAVE TO KNOW.*
6. I mean…space. Just space. Where can all the books go? Where is Hermione’s bottomless bag when you need it?
7. Moving. ‘Nuff said.
8. Finishing an amazing book and then having no one to talk to about it.
9. Trying to convince someone to read a book you absolutely know they will love, but they just won’t.
10. Having a joke that is perfect for the situation, but no one will understand it, because it’s based on a book you just read and you know nobody else has read it.**
11. Every reader’s dilemma: you finish a book (hooray!), but that means it’s time to choose a new book, and you’re paralyzed by indecision. So many books, so little time!

What bibliophilic misfortunes have you suffered?

†*coughMOMcough* But I still love you!
*Seriously, don’t people understand my need to see what they are reading?
**And then you try and explain it so that they’ll get it, but it just never works. It’s like a literary version of, “I guess you had to be there.”