I never learn

Okay, I don't really buy books new all that often.  I don't really have the expendable income for mass purchasing, but I also don't have the shelf room.  I book I keep is a book I really enjoyed and think I will want to read again.  This kind of book doesn't come along that often, although I am a big reader and so it happens more often than someone who only reads occasionally.  I do buy books used if I find them really cheap - like $.25 each cheap.  Or if I come across something I suspect I will like but also suspect the library won't have.  So I've got a ton of books by my bed stacked up, at least 4 big piles and some under the bed too in a bin.  And two piles on my dresser, the higher priority books, usually something I've selected and think I'm going to read "next."  Also found here are my library books.  And, of course, in the basement are 3 long plastic bins of excess to-be-read books. 

The incontrovertible fact is, I really don't need more books.  

But.  

But, you see, I've got this very short list of super favorite authors.  A very abbreviated list.  And when a book from one of these authors comes out, I want to have that book the moment, the very moment, that book hits the bookstore shelf.  Before even.  I don't want to wait for the library to purchase, catalog, and process it.  I want it now.  NOW.  I don't even have to read it now.  I just want it.  I want the option of reading it now even if I choose to just savor having it for awhile.  

One such book is coming out next week: An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris.  It's a hardcover, and even with the Amazon discount, it would still cost me $20 to buy it and ship it to me.  $20.  That's enough to make me hesitate.  I have a sad history of jumping the gun in these types of situations, of buying first and regretting later when the book didn't live up to expectations.  At least half the (admittedly small number of) books I bought last year probably weren't worth the money.  And the recent Tangled up in You - well, if I'd waited two weeks for the library copy, I could have saved myself $6 and been just as happy.  

It is true that this is a series book, the third in the Harper Connelly series, all of which (both of which) I've enjoyed.  And I do like to have a whole series.  It's so much nicer that way when you go back and reread.   This summer I found both the hardcover and the paperback of the first book, Grave Sight, for cheap at various venues.  I'm inclined to collect the series in hardcover because they're nicer, but I don't really have the shelf space, so I'm torn.  If I buy Ice Cold Grave in hardcover, I'm committed, I guess.

On the one hand: 

$ 20. 

Getting burned a bunch of times with books I've not enjoyed that much.

On the other hand:

I want this book.  It has a pining hero in it.  I LOVE those.  I really want to see where this thing with Tolliver is going.   

Sigh.  I'm just torn.  I shouldn't buy it.  I should wait and give myself options.  But knowing my history...I probably will.