I made many goals last year and one of them was to read 15 books. I thought one a month – plus a few thrown in to help pass the time on vacation – was completely attainable. In fact, I thought I’d have no problem exceeding that goal and reading 20, if not more!

Guess what didn’t get crossed off my list?

That’s right…I read a measly eight books last year. How embarrassing….

Part of it was me not taking my goal seriously and waiting until the middle of summer to start doing anything about it. The other part is that books are expensive! As someone who would love to publish a book or twenty in the future, this is probably sacrilegious to say, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

At minimum, they’re $16, but most are $20-25. Multiply that by 15 and that’s $300 a year….on books! With a “Want To Read” list on Goodreads that’s 100+, I could very easily bust my budget paying for my reading habit.

One day, I was shopping with my mom and we stopped in Barnes & Noble. I love that place. Truth be told, I loved it even more when they had big comfy armchairs for you to sit and peruse your selection before purchasing, but apparently that square footage is more valuable to them if it’s filled with products they can sell. #sadface

As I stood there with a stack of books in my arms trying to narrow it down to two, I asked my mom to help me choose and she said, “Why don’t you get them all?” When I said I didn’t have a spare $200 to drop on books that day, she smiled and said, “You don’t need $200. You just need a library card.”

The library!!!! I love the library!! How could I forget about the library?!!

My alma mater, the University of Massachusetts, is home to a 28-story library that I used to spend hours upon hours browsing the stacks of. One day, I stumbled upon a collection of vintage Vogue magazines…..history and fashion – two of my favorite things all rolled into one! Anytime I wanted to procrastinate, I hit the stacks. While I might not have been doing what I needed to do, I could at least feel good that I was still educating myself and not simply watching TV.

I left my stack of books right there on the display table (My apologies to the store employee who had to put them all away!) and went straight to the library where the pressure to pick the best book no longer existed because I could always come back and get more without making a $20 commitment each time.

Although I didn’t reach my goal of 15 books last year, I’ve upped the ante this year and am aiming for 25. I’ve already started in on Daisy Goodwin’s The American Heiress (because who doesn’t love a book that takes you back 130 years to a time when it wasn’t socially acceptable for women to walk around with visible pantylines and their bra strap showing?) and, since I like to mix up genres so the stories/topics don’t blend together in my mind, I’ve got You Are A Bad Ass by Jen Sincero on deck.

Won’t you join me? Got a good book for me to read? Let me know…I’ll add it to my list!