[hijack]Don’t ever move, lissener. Adventure is out there, a change of scenery may do you good, other towns will beckon, but there ain’t no library system like the KCLS.[/older, wiser, sadder]
I used to hoard books, to the point of Way Too Many books. Then I figured out what the root of my problem was. See, I have a bad memory for titles, author’s names. I knew if I happened to want to reread a book again, I’d never be able to find it again unless it was on my own book shelves.
As in, what was that SF book about after the polar ice caps melt and the ocean’s rise? With the populace divided between ‘Sweets’ and …uh, something else. Set in Australia…but whatw as the title? Who wrote it? Dunno.
So I started a database for books. Authors & titles & ISBNs, but mainly to hold a couple paragraph recap of each book which I write as soon as I finish it – plot summary, any unusual points about the book that might cause it to pop up in my memory. Now a little search turns up that, ok, the book I’m thinking of is “Drowning Towers” by George Turner.
So, nowadays I basically get rid of books as soon as I finish them. Maybe 50% are library books to return anyway, the rest are either given to family/friends, donated to the library sale, of simply “set free” to the Universal Library.
Godspeed, little books! May your new owners enjoy you.
Well, I am certainly not going to criticize your collection I am just stating my opinion that if you buy a book for some reason other than to read it, there is something wrong. Obviously it was a lot easier for me to give up my Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers than it is to give up “The Great Works of Literature” but if you KNOW you will never read them again WHY do you save them? Why not share them? As far as why collect anything - in a way I do think that items with utility, that have no utility to you should be passed on. However utility covers a lot of ground. Books are a special case - a good book has enormous value, which is wasted on your shelf.
I’m a collector. Heck, I’m a shameless collector.
Here’s why:
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I reread. I’ve read the vast majority of my books at least three times - and have a few titles that have broken triple digits on the reread (old and treasured friends, you see). On an estimate, I’d say roughly 60% of my collection is in double digits on rereads.
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I’m subject to book cravings. In other words, I’ll have a sudden urge to reread a book. This urge might strike at a time when it’s convenient for me to visit my local library to assuage the urge, but that’s not the safe way to bet. It’s a lot more likely it’ll hit at 11 pm as I’m heading to bed, or at 7:30am when I’m on my way out the door to work.
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My local library is… heinous. The selection is mediocre at best, their collection is arranged in the most half-assed way imagineable, and the staff is nasty. For example, in theory, their fiction is divided up by genre, but in practice, whoever did the dividing has the common sense of a monkey on crack. They will have books in the same series, by the same author (clearly marked as being part of a series) stored in different genre sections in varying corners of the library. When asked about it, the staff are invariably mean to the asker.
The combination of the first two means that I find it vastly preferable to own books (as opposed to borrow). The third just means I rarely darken the door of our local library. When I lived somewhere with a good library, I used to use the library to test out new authors/titles which I would then purchase if I enjoyed them.
I rarely loan books, though. I’m terrible at keeping track of who I’ve loaned which volume to, and so I’d inevitably loan something, several months (or years) later, get the craving to read it and find it inexplicably missing. I’m rather more inclined to think “My goodness! Jane simply must read this book - she’d absolutely adore it!” and then purchase Jane a copy as a gift.
We’ll buy a book sometimes if the wife and I are going to read it.
I prefer to borrow, then buy. I like the library.
Hoarding books like some people describe is – at the very least – fiscally stupid. Also, spatially cumbersome. Of course, I donate more money to the library each year than probably anyone here spends on books, but at least that’s a write off.
It IS spatially cumbersome – my apartment’s small and most of my walls are lined with bookshelves. But I like it! It’s very strange to me when I visit someone’s house and they don’t have any books at all.
Well, Aangelica just summed up pretty much what I was about to post with the exception of her third point, which I honestly can’t comment on since I moved her from Chicago in October and haven’t yet gotten around to checking out the local libraries. The reason for this is that I haven’t finished unpacking and sorting the 100+ boxes of books I took with me when I moved. This process is going slow because I keep stopping to re-acquaint myself with old friends that I haven’t read in years.
As I’m unpacking I keep telling myself that I should cull out the books that I don’t think I’m likely to want to read again. So far I’ve set aside maybe a half-dozen. :rolleyes: This may be because so far I’ve been mostly unpacking the newer acquisitions; eventually I’ll get to the boxes with the books I bought in the 70s and 80s, and I suspect there will be more there that no longer interest me.
I hoarded/collected for most of my life. When my mom died and I had to dispose of her collections (dolls, teddy bears, bells), I started to think about what would happen to my books after I was gone.
The hundreds of unread books began to shame me. What was I thinking? I won’t live long enough to read all of them, and new ones keep coming!
I gave about 200 to an on-line friend who visited last summer. Other books are “loaned” to friends, with instructions not to return them. If I see someone on-line mention a book I own that they haven’t been able to find, I’ll send it to them. I sold 100 or so at Amazon.
I’m down to just eight bookcases now, and I’d like to get to five.
Not a pretty copy, but I will buy an older edition of a book I already own, such as a low numbered Ballantine edition from the '50s or the Foundation series that Ace put out under other names.
A friend of mine had his books arranged by publisher and number, which looks really cool, since you can see the lettering and styling changes on the spines of the paperbacks. I rearranged my books that way once, but gave it up the next time I moved since it was impossible to find anything.
As for libraries - my library system has lots of sf books, but nowhere near as many as I have, not to mention the lack of magazines. Plus, they hardly have any sf reference books. For most non-fiction, the library is fine, but not for sf.
I collect books. I love being surrounded by them. I love browsing my own shelves. It makes me feel good.
Since buying a bookstore, I’ve thinned my collection of its chaff, but I’ve added much new content as well.
The books I keep fall into these broad categories:
[ul]
[li]Reference. I’m a writer, and still dabble in computer programming and Web design. I have a prodigious reference collection. When I need The Chicago Manual of Style or Mammal Tracking in North America, I need it NOW, and much of this stuff isn’t on the Internet.[/li][li]Autographed books. I own a bookstore, and meet a lot of other authors. I have quite a few signed books.[/li][li]Books I have an emotional connection to. I still remember getting the original L. Frank Baum Wizard of Oz series from my father’s friend because I enjoyed it so much when I was a tot. My CRC Standard Mathematical Tables served me well and faithfully through school and it’s a comforting presence on my shelves.[/li][li]Books that would be difficult to replace. This is a small town and it has a small library (with virtually no science fiction or fantasy, by the way). Most of Moorcock’s Eternal Champion series is out of print, as are most of Asimov’s nonfiction books. I like having sets available so that if I want to read the Lensman series, I can read it in order, right now.[/li][li]Collectible stuff. Leatherbound editions, limited special editions, and so forth.[/li][li]Stuff I collect just for fun. I have a lot of 19th and early 20th century books about science and engineering just because I want to. These would be very hard to replace.[/li][li]Travel guides and cookbooks that I shudder write in. They have personal notes on my trips and on favorite recipes.[/li][li]Music books (sheet music). Darned hard to find this stuff online, and there’s definitely an “instant gratification” factor when I want to play a particular song.[/li][li]My “pending” collection. I have over 100 books anxiously waiting for me to read them. Some will join my permanent collection. Most will wander off to find new homes.[/li][/ul]