Using the public library is one of those standard personal finance advice – you know, get a library card & cut back on renting movies or buying books to save a bundle.
That advice is almost trite, but it works.
And I LOVE it! I frequent 2 libraries – one near work, and one on the way between home and work. Sometimes I’ll just duck in the library for 30 minutes and browse the shelves and fall in love with the fiction aisle. Those books with the elegant script, the intriguing title, the cover picture a blurred tree off in the distance, or a half a face of a lady, or a tiny sailboat off in the ocean.
I admit, I am a sucker for covers like that – they beckon: read me, and I will make you think, I will show you something about love, faith, grief, fidelity, betrayal, forgiveness, loneliness. Every good fiction, I think, holds out that promise to readers: delve into my pages and discover human nature.
Can you imagine – to be able to lure people in with a promise like that? To write is to create worlds. Destinies. It’s almost like playing God. Sometimes I imagine that we are just words on the page in the big book that the Ultimate Author is writing. If Heaven is when you’d get to read all those books that God’s written, I’d plop myself down and never stop reading (except to eat and love – it is Heaven, is it not?).
I’ve secretly harbored the hope that I can write something beautiful. Something provoking. Something that can be read, and re-read, and everytime you read it you fall in love with it a little bit more. Someday. 
And how the heck did a post on the public library get to God & human nature & all that jazz? Beats me.
Glad to see my previous post extolling the virtues of the library over buying books took root. Now you need to get rid of cable TV.
“Sometimes I imagine that we are just words on the page in the big book that the Ultimate Author is writing.”
Exactly.
I love the public library too. We have a new one, and it’s so pretty and amazing and everyone is so nice. It’s like a perfect place of happiness and sunshine.
We love you too! You sound like my favorite kind of customer.
And I see nothing unusual in a post about public libraries turning into one about God and human nature (because God knows libraries are FULL of human nature…)
The library is one of a city’s greatest treasures. I know that this year alone I have saved at least $50 borrowing my book club’s selections, rather than buying them. Plus, I also borrow DVDs instead of renting them. Chicago’s Public Library has some recent releases which can save you money as well.
This isn’t something that I have cut back on because I still buy books but I make sure it is something that I really want and will use often like a reference book (e.g. cook book, pattern book, etc.).
The greatest thing about the library is that you can borrow several titles on the same non-fiction subject and if you don’t like them, you haven’t wasted any money!
http://www.urbanfrugal.com
As an avid reader, I am always extolling the virtues of libraries. My favorite thing to do is to randomly pick out new reads. Yes, some of them are bad, but I’ve come across some gems. One day at the Malden public library, I restricted myself to choosing only books with yellow spines. I ended up reading Momo, a 1970s classic that I had never heard of.
Interestingly, I typically see people at the lower end of the income spectrum there – for the books, the warmth, the internet access. The truth is that most of us would be better off spending that $15 on groceries instead of books, even if we’re not struggling.
I love the library too! I tell myself that some of my tax dollars are already paying for it, so why not use it?!
I also get kinda excited just browsing the aisles, and finding interesting book titles. It gives me a weird but good feeling. Every time I step out of a library, I feel just a bit smarter than before!