What do you do with all those books you've read?

i try not to judge folks by their books, i'm happy to see books in a home

something that makes me a little sad is how few books i see at yard sales these days, great if folks are keeping them, but i suspect that people just don't read, i've talked to folks from high school who never read another book once they were done

Oh I try not to too, but I do.
I'm even worse with their music!

The DVD collection can also be rather interesting!

My lifelong attraction to keeping books is just now bearing some real fruit. Sozlet's a precocious reader, and gobbles books. She goes through maybe three books a week on average (hefty ones). We do go to the library often but even so, she runs out. And she NEEDS to read before bed, part of her powering-down routine.

So it's been so fun to set her loose on our own bookshelves. A lot of things are beyond her yet, but she's found all kinds of enjoyable reading (especially nature books, Gerald Durrell and the like).

We are lucky enough to have a house that will hold a fair amount of books, and I see no need right now to cull significantly. We do sweeps maybe every 4-5 years, getting rid of stuff that just doesn't seem interesting anymore or that has deteriorated (especially old paperbacks). That keeps the total number of books at roughly their current volume (buy some, get rid of some, get some as gifts, get rid of some, etc.).

I don't have any pressing need for the space that the books currently take up, and it's still a deep and abiding pleasure to have a vague impression of some passage in some book -- nothing solid enough to Google -- and be able to walk over to the correct section, get the correct book, flip through the same book that I personally read earlier, and pinpoint the exact passage I had in mind.

I also LOVE my to-read pile, especially now that I have less time (or at least take less time) to read. E.G. gave me "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" for Christmas, I just got around to it, it was fabulous. There's something that makes me happy about having this assortment of books available that I know I will enjoy but that I read according to my mood/ interests at that particular moment. I know that good books have been doomed by my reading them when I was not in the right frame of mind (another reason I like to keep them and come back to them).

Guilty of judging here, but sometimes I'm right. I'm recently worked for a man who has a bunch of Scientology books and conservative talk show type books strewn about. I saw them within minutes of meeting him and my heart sunk. At first I hoped they were just "need to know what the crazy people think" type of curiosity, but now I know they are serious reads for him. Based on his reading material, and a few conversations outside of business I've had with him, I think he's an mindless drone who was lucky enough to have rich parents who died young enough to leave him a lot of money. Left to his own ability to think and make money he would be eating squirrel stew in a leaky trailer. We have never had a great working relationship and the books were my first clue that I should have walked away.

On the other hand, I've been working for the couple who have shelves full of classic literature, poetry, biography, comedy and history books. For all I know they never opened a single one, but just the presence of the titles and authors gives me a good feeling about these folks- and so far it's all been positive. I've never had a problem with people who read books about and by Thoreau, Whitman, Wilde, Roosevelt, Bill Bryson, Erma Bombeck etc.

Books tell you a lot about a person and their values.

I've been thinking: Perhaps we shouldn't be too zealous about clearing out our books. Ever walked into one of those pristine homes where you can't see any sign of books, or magazines, or the odd newspaper, no print clutter at all ..? You find yourself looking for signs, clues .. and you wonder: just who are these people?
It doesn't seem right somehow. A bit like a home without a cat. Or a dog. You start wondering what's wrong with the people who live there?

that's my next cull, i digitized all my music and sold most of it to a great little record store nearby, the guy loved to see me come in, the last time i was there i saw he had movies, i asked if he wanted more, he said sure, judging by the music, he figured i'd have some good stuff, time to sort out the god knows how any dvd's ive collected (i've copied most to an external hard drive for ipod touch viewing

I guess I pushed some buttons here, that's good, I think. I am always curious about why we do the things we do while often complaining about the things we do (or not) I was once a hoarder of books. But books being kept unread/re-read are books unread/re-read. So I was thinking why is it we do that (save the books)? so, I asked. To those of you seem affronted by my question/observations, I apologize for asking for your explanation and for offering my thoughts at the moment. I have been called arrogant and opinionated for asking such questions and yes I am arrogant and opinionated, I wouldn't want to know anyone who was not arrogant and opinionated.

Hi msolga! I mostly listen to audiobooks so I have a ton of CDs around my place. I do listen to books more than once so I keep them for at least awhile. I am happy to share my audiobooks with anyone that wants to listen to them. Another A2Ker sent me to megaupload where I uploaded the books and then I can send links to people and they just download them.

Andy, if you're reading this, I've gotten a few new books! Oh, I do listen mostly to true crime stories but do have some other non-fiction books, etc.

If anyone is interested, I can send a list of what books I have.

say it ain't so

I love books and having them around. Unfortunately we do not have the space to accomodate the amount of books I'd love to surround me.

I tend to keep the classics and recipe books - I do re-read the classics. Another author that I like to read and keep is Stephen King when I feel like being frightened.

My kids have also started collecting certain books. I also like to take books out from the library for more general reading.

Those other books and when both my kids outgrow theirs - I usually donate to the library for their annual book fair.

I'd like to have more books around me, but I, too, don't have the space (I've eight bookshelves in my room, and there are four in other rooms).

I 'ban' some books in the cellar - mainly older travel books and paperbacks.
Old mystery books are 'recycled' ... as a gift to one of my SILs.

I'll just inherited more than 6,000 more books (my father's library, after mother's recent death).
I'll keep some hundred, will sell most of the others, I think.

And actually, I do buy not as much books as 10, 15 years ago - but get more selective re age (more antique books or least reprints) and 'book design'.

I usually put it on one of the shelves when I have read a book.
No, I don´t hang on on to every book, but most of them.
I usually read a book as soon as I get it or buy it. If I start a book and it is not my style I don´t read it. I don´t have any books I might plan to read sometime in the future
Books I like or need like dictionaries are precious to me, others I give away especially to Lion´s or others who resell them. Often I leave a book in a hotel or train when I have finished the book for the x time or if I am not interested in it any more.

which books would I not get rid of. Books I really enjoy, books that are old, like the lovely small "pocket books" from the turn of the century 1800/1900.
Books that my aunt made as book binder, books which have been my great grandparents´, grandparents and parents, books I really like to use for teaching, old schoolbooks back to 1890-1910. (they were not my schoolbooks)
I don´t care if I off-load a paperback or a hardback. The book means something to me - not the cover.
Read and pass on immediately idea is nothing for me. I often read a book again and again . Find connections between different kinds of books which is interesting to discover.
I buy less books, but still buy books and also go to the library.
I do get rid of books as I have no more space in the bookcases. I have to because 15 bookcases 9 of them from floor to ceiling is enough. There are no more walls to put up another bookcase






(Finally, are you still buying as many books as you did, say 10 -15 years ago? Just curious.)

Well, I want to keep my Celtic studies books which took a long time to collect and which I have a degree in . . . like I will ever do anything with it!

I want to keep my Simone books . . . in fact, it is one of the books I am rereading now. I have to read more than one at a time because I am always frustrating myself with misplacing them. Ditto, the English history books and the Indo-European stuff.

I had some built-ins at my old house, which I miss. Some vandals wrecked one shelving unit . . . grrrrr!

Cookbooks are almost as bad but I was able to use the shelves my ex built for kids toys in the kitchen where it holds more books than my former tall shelf from the old house.

I'm afraid of table saws, so I think woodworking is out of the question. I have a set of shelves that I want to decoupage with scenes of France and put in the guest room. Need to do that this summer.

I still have the majority of my art books, and books about italy. I've kept all the books I've read from the Soho Crime publishers, about thirty, thinking I'd sell them in a batch to some other Soho Crime fanatic.

Books seem to, over the years, come and go in our house. When I was about 40 I sold a box (size of a small refrigerator), mostly paperbacks for 25 cents each. My hardbacks, lotz of first editions, I always kept. I kept the bookcases in the foyer and people would say something like "I love your book collection" when they came in. Well, those books -- history, mystery, many spy, fiction, self-help, psychology, philosophy, spiritual, horses, dogs, autobiographies, biographies. literary thrillers -- were all lost in a fire.

I missed books in my home so much that I went out garage selling and bought any book I could find that matched what I lost (impossible) and filled up some new shelves with these old books. Plus, it became rather popular to see bookshelves in restaurants with old (no cover) books lining the walls, also in new homes I held open as a real estate salesperson. Thinking that books must be going out of style, I bought lots of those..

When we retired I brought all the new collection of books to Texas. Just last year we decided we'd have to live without all those books so I gave them to a couple charitable organizations - we just don't have the space to spare and what good are they, not being read, under beds, etc.. Now, I try to send them to friends or relatives after I've read them but there's about 20 brand new ones crowding shelves in our small office.

How could I forget? I still have most of my books re architecture and landscape architecture/urban design/garden design (a couple of hundred). Oy vey. Some of those are worth good money, so one of my next tricks is to start to sell on amazon.

Pushing buttons is good.

depends, some people have very sensitive buttons, so sensitive that pushing a button anywhere near them gets a reaction.

I promise to keep my buttons buttoned.