"We’re moving in a couple weeks (the first time since I was 9 years old), and I’ve been going through my library of 3000+ books, choosing the books that I could bear to part with and NOT have to pack to move. Which made me wonder… When’s the last time you weeded out your library? Do you regularly keep it pared down to your reading essentials? Or does it blossom into something out of control the minute you turn your back, like a garden after a Spring rain?
Or do you simply not get rid of books? At all? (This would have described me for most of my life, by the way.)
And–when you DO weed out books from your collection (assuming that you do) …what do you do with them? Throw them away (gasp)? Donate them to a charity or used bookstore? SELL them to a used bookstore? Trade them on Paperback Book Swap or some other exchange program?"
A: I am moving in a couple of weeks too and I have been weeding though them also. I recently posted about my trades on paperback swap, which I love. I have pretty much narrowed it down to what I am keeping. I do have to admit that I have one whole bookshelf dedicated to historical fiction. I am one of those people, a hoarder, with the life goal of whoever dies with the most books wins! I love every one I own and treat them like my personal jewels. No one is allowed to touch them Period, all mine and I know I am greedy.
My biggest pet peeve is when you lend out a book and never get it back, which is the same difference of getting rid of it. Because of that reason I have lost some very good books and I will not lend them out anymore unless I know I can really trust a person to return it. I lost "Memoirs of a Geisha" that way, never lend your crappy boss at work a book you love. I wish I could say I have 3000+ books. I think I am in the ball park of 500, not including educational books, that is a whole different bookcase. My husband on the other hand owns almost every Star Wars novel ever written including the reference books. He would never part with a single one and I think it is about 400 novels.
I only lend to my mom and sister. Here is mine
ReplyDeleteI lost my much loved copy of The Bell Jar to someone who never bothered to return it!
ReplyDeleteBooking Through Weeding
Your bookish habits sound a lot like mine. I also never lend out books. Too many have never come home, and I hate to have to waste money buying duplicates when I could be buying new reads. I am thinking of getting back into paperback swap, after an absence of a year or so. I do love to swap, and need to get some books out the door, but the postage issue still niggles. I end up paying an arm and a leg for stamps, and the price of postage keeps rising.
ReplyDeleteI just hate to give my books away. Even my old children's books....My kids used them and now I have them packed away waiting for grandkids! I'm hopeless. lol
ReplyDeleteI don't lend out books either, but I do use PBS a lot!
ReplyDelete400 Star Wars books?!?! Holy...
ReplyDeleteThat's impressive. I enjoy reading a Star Wars novel every once in a while.
I learned about lending out books the hard way too - I am very good about returning people's books, but they are not at returning mine. My collection is still rather small, I think 120 at the last count, but in the last 6 months it grew by at least 50, so it is rapidly growing.
ReplyDeleteI forgot about counting books loaned out! If that were the case, I "get rid of" a number of books each year! Boo. Hmm...maybe I should start sending collection notices to my forgetful friends. ;)
ReplyDeleteI rarely lend my books out.. only to a few trusted bookish nerds like me. On the flip side I've actually catalogue my entire movie collection... it really is almost like a library. The person has to sign their name knowing they have to replace the dvd if they lose it! Last time someone had to replace my Wings of the Dove...:)
ReplyDeleteYou're moving?
ReplyDeleteeekk
Every time I come hither you've got something new (i.e. tabs..)
you go girl! (Wish I had your knowledge on how to do that!!)
I just sucked it up and bought a new copy of Memoirs of a Geisha at a used book store. My post man has gotten to know me very well when it comes to shipping books. The most I have paid is like 2.60 for postage.
ReplyDeleteJo-jo is a hoarded too! Figures I feel the same way all mine!
I do love Star Wars but not so much the books because I just do not know all of the history. I have found and ordered some really cool ones. My favorite is a huge book with pictures and diagrams of how all the models were made for the movie. I got it awhile ago from a Sci-Fi book club.
Even with lending out movies I used to write it on the memo board in the kitchen and say "your on my list so you better give it back or I will hunt you down".
I do have a funky habit of reading a library book and then buying it if I love it. The weird part is that I get them brand new and never touch them again. I love new books the smell and all. I do not want someone to read my new books and mess the spine all up. I am a gentle reader, barely even bend the book open so no spine bending.
I am moving and it will be the first time in 9 years. We have been here for a long time and finally we are buying our first home. I will be gone from the blog while I move. The whole new house has a dish not cable, so it will all have to be wired for the internet. Once I actually get the keys!
Thanks for the compliment Marie. It was hard to do I had to do the whole thing in code and it took forever. My husband keeps yelling at me stop changing everything. But until he gets his own blog, I do what I want with mine.
I'm with ya on loaning out books to co-workers! I loaned one out and was promised that it would be returned very soon but alas, no book. I no longer work with this person so I guess I'll never get the book back now...but I have since relented and now just obsessively ask what they think of the book and I always seem to get it back. :-)
ReplyDeleteVery good logic Amy I like it and it would work!
ReplyDeleteHa I jumped ship the old place I used to work went out of business a few months after I left. So there was no chance of finding the lost book.
It's so funny you say that Lizzy...I lent out my first and ONLY copy of The Other Boleyn Girl to my crappy boss at work and she never gave it back! I quit my job in May so I guess I won't ever get that book back, now will I... ::sigh!::
ReplyDeleteThat is exactly what happened at my old job!
ReplyDeleteWhy ask to borrow if you have no intention of returning it? Or no care to return, same difference to me.