First let me say that I love books.
I love the way they smell, the way they feel, and the words inside them. I dream of starting at the first shelf of a library and just reading until I reach the last shelf. I would love to convert a room in my house to a library with built in book selves. I would even teach myself the Dewey Decimal System just to make it more library-esque. I LOVE BOOKS.
The exception to my love of books is textbooks. Not that they don't share the same qualities as other books, but their price boarders upon extortion.
I could have paid a car payment, on both of my cars, for what I just spent on books. Now if I had a stack of books a foot tall, I would not feel so bad. There would be some satisfaction in procuring all that information, in filling a shelf in my dream library. However my stack is 4 inches tall and consists of 2 books and a lab manual. Only two subjects, not the plethora of information one would expect after doling out large amounts of cash. If I had gone to Barnes and Noble or Boarders I could have had a stack of books 2 feet tall, on Amazon.com 3 feet tall. I would have information on all sorts of subjects to augment my learning and entertainment.
But no, here I sit with my 3 books feeling forced.
