![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The books that ate my house, redux
May. 13th, 2010 11:49 amWow, lots of feedback on yesterday's poll, and my thanks to everyone who responded. Confirming my own thoughts, most folks were in favor of some kind of cull, whether a thoughtful selection or just opening up my house so you could help yourselves :-)
I'm pleased to see that my book hoarding falls in the middle of the pack-- I stopped counting around five thousand but I'm pretty sure I fall short of ten thousand.
In reality, if I'd kept every book I'd ever purchased, the problem would be much worse. I tended to give away romance novels rather than keep them, and the same went for mysteries that were good enough for one read but not interesting enough that I wanted to come back to them. But f&sf books I hung on to, in part because when I was growing up libraries carried very little genre fiction, so it was buy my own or go without. The books I bought back then--when each book was an hour at a minimum wage job, or meant skipping a meal--those are the ones I'll find it hardest to part with.
I also haven't culled hardcovers, not even the ones that I received from a bookclub by mistake. Hardcovers were a sign of middle-class respectability, but it's time to go through those as well.
I'd like to get my collection to a manageable size. Ideally I'd like to have it all on the first floor of my house, and to keep any of the good stuff out of the damp basement. And, for those books I'm never going to read again, it's only right that I give someone else the chance to enjoy them.
I'm pleased to see that my book hoarding falls in the middle of the pack-- I stopped counting around five thousand but I'm pretty sure I fall short of ten thousand.
In reality, if I'd kept every book I'd ever purchased, the problem would be much worse. I tended to give away romance novels rather than keep them, and the same went for mysteries that were good enough for one read but not interesting enough that I wanted to come back to them. But f&sf books I hung on to, in part because when I was growing up libraries carried very little genre fiction, so it was buy my own or go without. The books I bought back then--when each book was an hour at a minimum wage job, or meant skipping a meal--those are the ones I'll find it hardest to part with.
I also haven't culled hardcovers, not even the ones that I received from a bookclub by mistake. Hardcovers were a sign of middle-class respectability, but it's time to go through those as well.
I'd like to get my collection to a manageable size. Ideally I'd like to have it all on the first floor of my house, and to keep any of the good stuff out of the damp basement. And, for those books I'm never going to read again, it's only right that I give someone else the chance to enjoy them.