Yes. You read that right. I have officially imposed on myself a shopping ban (which includes more than just books, but I’ll write about that later). One of the biggest categories of my purchases go to books. I get emails from Amazon daily highlighting Kindle deals, and my goodness, do I splurge on books. Malaysia’s RM2500 tax relief on books does nothing for me with the amount of money I spend on books.
But this needs to stop. At least for a while.
Like all bookworms, I have a large collection of books that are on my to-read list. A lot of these are books I have purchased since several years ago that I have never gotten round to, but which I do want to clear. So I have decided that until I finish reading 20 of these books, I shall not buy another book. Here are my rules for this book buying ban:
Rules of Mai’s Book Buying Ban
- I am not allowed to purchase any book until I finish reading all 20 in this list.
- I am allowed to read other books I possess that is not in this list (whether from the other books I have not yet read, books I want to reread, or books that are gifted to me).
- I must read at least 35% of a book before deciding if I want to DNF it. My goal, however, is to finish all of them, even if I dislike it. That’s a commitment I have always made for myself.
- Some of these titles are part of a series. For the sake of my sanity, I am allowed to purchase the sequels if I love the book enough, just so I can complete the series if I want to. This is the only allowance I will make for myself.
So, what are these 20 books? For the record, these are all fiction books, mostly belonging to the fantasy category. These are not the only books I haven’t read yet in my library. I have many, many other books, both fiction and not, that I need to get around to, but these 20 are the ones that have haunted me the most.
So there it is. 20 books, all fiction. A good mix of light reads and doorstoppers. I shall need to finish all of these before I can break my shopping ban and buy more books.
Perhaps you’re wondering—why? What is the purpose of having the ban in the first place? The answer is simple. It’s to teach me discipline and delayed gratification.
A lot of times, I buy these books because they are on sale, and especially because they have been on my list to read—some for years now. But while hitting that one-click buy button is easy, committing to reading the book sometimes is not, especially when there are just SO many books I want to read. And I have plenty of books on my list. So I want to teach myself a bit of delayed gratification. I want to enjoy the things I have first, before allowing myself to enjoy the rest. I commit to give the books I have the attention they deserve before moving on to something else.
But of course, to make this sustainable, I also have rewards in place to keep me going.
My Reward(s) After Finishing the 20 Books
I need something to look forward to, right? My reward after finishing these 20 books is…to finally be able to buy more books lol. Here are some titles that I really, really, really want to read, but which I have not yet purchased. So once I finish this book ban, I will reward myself with these:
Now, how long do I anticipate this will take?
- As of the writing of this post, it’s mid-October 2025, and I have read 23 books.
- Last year in 2024, I read 21 books.
- In 2023, at the epitome of my PhD journey, I read 11 books.
- In 2022, I read 41 books.
- In 2021, 40 books.
- And in 2020, 40 books.
Based on this data, I can say that I range between 20-40 books a year.
So I shall give myself nine months for this. By July next year, I hope to clear all 20 books. That gives me a nice nine months to execute this shopping ban as well. And I’m ready for it.