Libraries are the best, and cheapest, at easing cravings

Last December, Mark Taylor, the food reviewer, talked excitedly about a brand new cookbook he had received for review. It was called Smashing Plates and I wanted it. I went to Amazon ready to buy, but at £18+ I became a bit hesitant. What could I do? How long could I wait? I had no idea when I’d be able to afford £18 given over to just one purchase, and a trivial one at that.

On the very unlikely chance I could reserve it for the future, I went to the library catalogue to see if our library had it registered yet. Not only did they have it on their system but it was in our local library, just sitting on the shelf. I went and picked it up that evening after work.

Two months later and I was coveting a book about how Detroit went bust.

This is a topic which I find endlessly fascinating but I doubt I would ever do more than skim through this new work. At £4+ on Kindle, the price wasn’t excessive but it was too much to just buy a book that I would never read past the first few pages. This didn’t stop me wanting it ever since I’d seen it in Waterstones yesterday. Again I looked on the library’s catalogue as the very last resort and once again it was at the library just sitting there waiting for me.

Libraries are a beautiful thing. The one thing I didn’t manage to find there recently was a new knitting book called Botanical Knits 2.

I guess you can’t have everything.