I read 13 books in January. It will be summer before I have a month with a double digit count again. Winter break and ice days were the primary reasons I was able to read so many books. It also helped that I spent December collecting books to read. I’ve blown through most of my stockpile and when I don’t have a book ready and waiting, I find myself reading slowly to keep from being bookless.

I’m at a point where I need to spend extended time in McKays searching for new books and series. It’s not that I haven’t been to McKays enough lately. I drop by McKays so frequently that I sometimes catch myself wondering if I’m wearing the exact same outfit I wore when I visited them a few days earlier. I’m sure the McKays employees have customers lumped into broad categories, because lately I’ve been the “looking for the next in a series” shopper. I walk directly to a specific aisle, rapidly touch every single book in one or two sections, and then I leave. Used book stores are wonderful for finding new books and starting new series. They’re terrible for hunting down book #4 in one series and #6 in another series. They’re even worse if you’re checking endlessly for a fairly new release to be brought in by another reader.

When total frustration at the inability to finish a series has me using real money instead of McKay’s trade credit, I usually end up shopping the used book sellers on Amazon. They’re less expensive and faster than eBay. I do wish that Amazon would make it easier to eliminate former library books from the available choices. McKays rarely buys back former library books.

I should have created a GoFundMe for bookstore credits months before starting this reading adventure. This would be so much easier if I could walk in Barnes & Noble and buy a giant pile of books each month.