Confessions of a book hoarder

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Maybe they meant for this year. 500 books a year is OK, especially if somebody is working and has children. I can’t wait until retirement when my goal will be 1000 books a year! I have to be reasonable and allow plenty of time to knit too.
 
I have owned an enormous amount of books over the years. The last two times I have moved, much of my time was spent packing and/or getting rid of books. I have a library that is full of “keepers” (mostly non-fiction) and I have gotten rid of box after box of novels over the years. I now have a Barnes and Noble Nook, which aside from saving space, proved handy during the lockdowns here as most stores were closed and I was still able to download new books to read. It allows me to get plenty of detective/thriller novels without having to make space for all of them.
 
I hear you! That is why I love Kindle Unlimited. I can borrow plenty of books, read them, and return them. That way I save money for the ones that I really NEED (who doesn’t need the entire Summa Theologica and the Harvard Classics?)
 
For a long time I have been buying books at a much, much faster rate than I’ve been reading them, and so I have many shelves full of books that I have yet to read. I used to cull some now and then (whether I’ve read them or not) to make room for new acquisitions, then stopped doing so and let my new books pile up on tables and cabinets. Recently, however, having read about the need to detach oneself from worldly goods to improve one’s spiritual life, I’ve taken a harder look at my library and decided that some books which I’d figured I would keep until I died could be got rid of without regrets. So I got rid of them and, wonder of wonders, I don’t miss them. I’ll be taking another look at my collection soon to see what other formerly permanent pieces of it will get the heave-ho.
 
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I will call him without the asterisk. 😉

@GKMotley, you are called to weigh in!
 
I don’t doubt it!

I have (or used to have) a fantasy about opening a bookstore, which is why I asked.
 
It is very nice to be remembered and summoned. Or this sort of thing would be called “bragging”.

Weighing in. With whatever weight approximately 30 thousand+ books would have.
I was raised in a reading family, to read as an integral part of life. Was gifted with books, on all occasions. Began accumulating my own selections roughly when I started college, and also started 5 years working in the college library. Continued my dedicated book collecting from that point until this, 57 years later. Have worked in the used/rare/OOP and major chain store book worlds. I both collect, systematically, and accumulate, widely.

In house, on shelves, measured by average books per shelf-foot, 9000+. On floors, tables, chairs, in boxes, another 1500+. In attic, boxed, 1200+. In garage, nil. Because I took 18 boxes to my 2 rented storage units this week. In storage units, not sure. But roughly 400+ boxes there. “On loan” to my book collecting daughter/SIL, 100+. Total best estimate, 30 thousand +/-. True story.

What says my wife? “More books”. We met working in a library. Best thing I ever took out of a library.

Any questions?

Thanks for the invite.
 
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I can sell other peoples’ books. Hard to sell my own. But it is drawing near the time when I need to start converting the collectibles into $$$ for my wife.
 
I once had a book hoarding problem. I never counted them- but I know I had well over 1000 or so books. I had an inability to get rid of them. I read 90% of them and then put them on a shelf. I rarely read them twice. My ‘to read’ books were stacked on end tables, the coffee table, bedside tables, the mantle, et cetera. I’d constantly go to bookstores. It became a real problem.

The first purge had at least eight large boxes full of books I wasn’t really crazy about. My shelves were still full to bursting even after that. Over the years (because this hasn’t been a quick process), I’ve finally got the pile down to those books that are extremely sentimental, have read and would read again, and a small stack of those I definitely will get around to reading or finishing. The last hurdle was my dictionary and thesaurus, where I tried to justify keeping them in case the Internet went down. When I realized how ridiculous my justification was, I finally let them go.

edit: I got a Kindle two years ago for Christmas. This has been a very good thing for someone like me.
 
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For someone like me, an electronic reader is an abomination.

Though I do have some read/narrated books. For travel in car, or other emergencies.

On the other hand, book hoarding has never been a problem with me. Comes naturally. It’s book storage that’s tricky. For 40 years, I had planned an addition to my house, around 1200 sq. ft. for a library/man cave. It will not happen.
 
I have a very big box, with the books I read as a child, in my basement. Those are going to be given to my niece as soon as I can have help with transporting it. She was 2.5 years old when she figured out how to put letters together to write words and read and was a very early “talker” but late “walker”.

I moved 10 times in my first 10 adult years and at the end I knew which books went into which box in the proper order to fit perfectly in the boxes.

I don’t even dare to count how many books I have in my apartment.
 
GKMotley said:
I can sell other peoples’ books. Hard to sell my own. But it is drawing near the time when I need to start converting the collectibles into $$$ for my wife.
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Did you buy them with the intention of reselling them at a profit, or only with the intention of reading them? I’d do the former if I thought I could pull it off. As it is, I have the leaden touch when it comes to these things; however careful I might be, no book could fetch me more than I’d put out for it. So I buy a book with the intention of reading it — and I fear that intention has faded over time for not a few of them.
 
I’m with you about ereaders. Does not have the same feel. I like to tell those who ask, “I like books; they don’t need electricity and they have no moving parts.”
 
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