Packing Books (Or: The Book Trophy Thread)

So we're moving at the end of the month and a part of the process has been sorting through our books and getting rid of the ones we don't want to cart around anymore. Despite a huge process of discarding (and btw, any ILXors in NYC who want to drop by and look through what we're getting rid of, we've got two overflowing boxes of books plus two more stacks of hardcovers) I'm up to 8 heavy boxes of books and looking over my bookcases I can see that I'll end up with at least 5 more boxes (if not more). The weird dissonance here is that many of these books I'm keeping I will probably never read again. It's not just that there are too many to read again (tho there is that) or that there will always be new books to read to keep me from reviewing all my old ones (tho there is that too). It's that many of these books I no longer own because of the print that is inside but because of -- what Walter Benjamin might call - the trophy aspect. Some of them I've kept because of the memory of reading them (all my Robertson Davis books, which I love dearly), or because they have a personal resonance (my father's annotated college copy of Alice in Wonderland, my mother's college copy of Collected Works of Dorothy Parker). Some because it's my field (music crit, ethnography, critical theory, continental philosophy, etc) and tho I might not reread any of them, I know I might be happy to be able to quote/footnote them in the future. Some because I'm just proud that I read them (Pynchon's V + Gravity's Rainbow), or because they're really nice editions of classics (some gorgeous leather-bound editions of Dickens, Austen, etc that a friend gave me awhile back).

Anyway, I'm putting this in ILX and not ILB because (a) does anyone read ILB but also (b) I know this is an issue for people who haven't switched to digital media yet and lug around thousands of records, or ILC people who have stacks and stacks of comic floppies (thank god I don't collect floppies, that could theoretically be another dozen boxes). I'm not a hoarder -- outside books I'm good about getting rid of stuff. But when it comes to books, even when I've gotten rid of 300 books I'm still left with a collection of -- idk, a thousand maybe? That's way too many books! Discuss!

Hah, been planning on my own purge for years -- too many of my books are essentially wallpaper. Also, working for a high end academic library = who needs to buy books?

Of my five bookcases I could reduce it to three in an initial cull, two in a closer one. Plenty of things I'll never let go but others won't be touched again (or, if I'm really honest, at all).

After a few moves and getting rid of the Books I'll Never Read Even Once, and the Books I Think Won't Need To Read Or Look At Again, a lot of what I own now are Books I Intend To Get Around To Reading, which have to wait their turn behind the library books and the e-books.

But yeah, I saved some trophy books as you call them. I think it makes sense.

I have hoarding tendencies with my books. I've had to implement a strict policy on what books I own; I got rid of all the books/authors I couldn't claim to *love*. If I read it and liked it - not good enough, it's gone. I've carried this over into my book-buying policy, too: I use the library for everything I can, and then I'll buy the ones (new or used) that I end up loving. The only time I'll buy a book new is if it's an author I already 'collect', as it were.

Maybe one thing I should've pointed out is that there's now two of us moving so I feel that slightly mediates the ridiculousness of the amount of books I have. But yes, eventually I'd like to bring my books down to like a more manageable 3-4 boxes for both of us of essential books that mean a lot and/or reference, etc.

People do read ILB!

I badly need to cull, because I've only got so many walls and I want to fit a piano in at some point very soon. But yeah, stuff I've loved I cannot throw away and same with stuff I might love if I got round to reading it. Leaving only stuff I read and didn't love, which mostly get ditched anyway, and regretted buys - not as large a category as I'd thought, though pride might be getting in the way a bit there.

Developing abhorrence of certain authors would definitely help. I have several feet of Amis, Auster, Greene or McEwan that would make for fruitful pruning.

i really need to purge my books. last time i moved, i got a bunch of estimates from movers and went with the company whose estimate was 1000 pounds higher than everyone else's. i kept telling all the sales reps who came to my apartment that i have a LOT of books and they weigh more than you think. my stuff ended up coming in just under the estimate, and it turned out the reason that company's estimate was so crazy high was because the rep had mistakenly included the weight of the washer and dryer in the unit, which weren't coming with me on the move.

I just donated two huge tubs of books, have been wrestling with the same issues.

I sold a lot of my books before I moved from Australia, so part of my trophy keeping are books I used to own, that I've read, that I want to see on my shelves again. Maybe I will never read them again, but I like knowing I have them. And sentimental keepsakes, like my grandmother's broken-down Oxford Concise that I have to keep in plastic because the binding fell off and pages are falling out...

I personally like having a lot of books, but I dislike staring at a lot of books that I didn't like or don't care about etc. I don't like being reminded of my errors in judgement, lol

i think the panic that i feel when someone suggests i get rid of some of my books is borderline pathological :\

I can't see me switching to digital, no matter how much sense it makes, cos books are such beautiful things to have around. I also think kiddies should have a library to explore and aspire to, not a kindle.

I also think kiddies should have a library to explore and aspire to

^^^yep. I hesitate to throw out anything that my wife or daughter may want/need to read at some point. plus I like thumbing through old stuff.

i have so many books and only recently have i realized i can get rid of some of them

i dont mind them as 'wallpaper' though

I cull my collection pretty constantly. I got into the habit long ago, when I was very poor and had to sell books in order to buy books. In 35 years of culling I have only culled a few books that I still carry regrets about selling - fewer than 10. The most basic criteria I use to determine what to cull are:

- Is there much chance I would ever read this book again; would it be with a pleasure similar to the first time I read it?

- Could I easily replace this book if I change my mind, and do it relatively cheaply with an edition just as good or better?

- Does this book have a very high sentimental value (and, by god, it had better be damned sentimental to make it worthwhile)?

- If I haven't read this book, what are the chances I would read it soon, with great pleasure? How many other unread books are waiting in the same queue?

What I tend to keep are mostly books that are very well-printed, solid, readable editions of texts I expect to read or consult again, some books that are key touchstones to certain interests, some books that would be extremely difficult to replace. My whole library comes to fewer than 500 volumes, including reference books. this after 35 years of bibliophilia. (bows)

If you have the collector gene, woe unto you, for all your books will carry an indefinable aura of great value, in ways you cannot quite articulate, other than "I can't possibly get rid of that; it's a very desirable book". If so, you may as well hire another lorry just for books, or else shoot yourself at once.

I have several shelves of old sci-fi books that I don't think I'll ever get rid of, even if I never read them again, simply because they look so great, and nothing appeals to my sensibility more than outdated visions of the future

Also, classic sci-fi books seem to go out of print very easily.

Ummm. I have 23 boxes of books in storage, and I know this because I just had to move them last month. A lot of those are kids stuff, tho, and I plan to need them in the future. Also I'm a happy re-reader and like to visit old friends so it's not like the appeal of my favorites has diminished.

There are a ton of out-of-print books, things by illustrators and authors now deceased, things with a very small original market so there will never be a demand to keep them in publication or bring them back, so I'm holdin' on to what I got.

Mass-market sci-fi might seem like the MOST disposable format & genre but actually these are some of my treasures!! I will have the best possible archive long after the rest of the world has forgotten that there was ever a book as lovely as Ammonite.

Note: I would normally NEVER leave books in storage, I don't want to give the impression that I own them just to own them. I just got into a series of housing situations where it wasn't possible to make room.

yeah I'm glad I kept the kids' books I did - a couple of my daughter's current favorites are this ridiculous English "Fairies of the countryside" book that my wife had growing up, and my old copy of Dr. Seuss's "Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?" (which my wife said should really be subtitled "So, You're Jewish")

I cull all the time, but always keep the ones I've turned to more than once. They're a quick adjunct to memory, a hind-hind brain. And I think their more telling and decorative than any other possession...

http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/94/bookssm.jpg

There are piles awaiting the cull elsewhere as well. Only a few items of any significant worth, and I suppose 95% were originally purchased used...

^^^jealous

Oh hello my future apartment.

I have at least 8 boxes of books. They are piled in my studio apartment, untouched since I last moved 2 years ago.

(Don't ask about the CDs.)

CDs I was lucky with. I had a minor collection when I was in highschool that I lost when I went to college and by that time digital media was in full affect. So my full CD collection now is promos sent thru the mail, and since I basically ripped them all I don't care about toting them around. I'll probably donate them to the local library or something.

We're getting a wall of bookshelves in our living room as soon as finances allow. We currently have about 8 boxes of books in our office waiting to be shelved, and I miss them.

Looks like I maxxed out at 14 boxes. Could be worse. So, what should I do with any books I can't give away? Do all libraries take donations?

No.

Put them on your stoop for passers-by.

xp I think most of them DON'T, because people would donate tons of worthless crap that didn't actually fit the profile of whatever that branch's patrons wanted or needed...and then you have all these duplicates of The DaVinci Code or whatever that no one wants anymore and no shelf space for the real needs of the community.

freecycle.org

guess I can leave them all in the apartment bld laundry room. that seems to be the depository for books

Oh yeah, that too.

I just read this with a combined pang of "jeez, I'd better stop right now before I end up like this" and "oh man, he's got some pretty great stuff, I should buy more stuff".

I like being the kind of person who has a lot of books, but I wish I could also exercise a little more discrimination about which books. It's OK with the CDs because I could muster some kind of contrarian yeah-well-actually stance pro even the most glaring shite in the collection; I can do that for the sci-fi books, maybe, but there are so many books I bought by the armful from clearance sales and charity shop bargain bins etc which somehow I still have and can't quite bring myself to get rid of.

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/6746/librarye.jpg

This is my library. I've been comprehensively out-swished by Sanpaku here, I feel.

I don't know, his sheet set is pretty blah, you could probably out-spruce him there.

Access to tools helps. Mine is just $240 of 1x10 glued together with routed out shelf supports and glued together in place with ratcheting tie-downs (its too big to fit through any doors...)

Many libraries do take donations, though they usually just sell them and don't add them to their collections.

I've got about 15 boxes that have been in storage for 5 years -- just moved, moved the boxes from the basement of the old place to the attic of the new place. They await the day we move into a place with enough shelf space for them.

All I have to show for life so far:

In our first house...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3499/3767528819_19dfaee63b.jpg

And our current house (the fiction section, authors G to M)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3419/3767441339_d575e355fe.jpg

Though now it's significantly more crowded, and we're trying to work out whetehr any putative future child really needs a room, or whether they could just sleep outside in the garden

ah, I knew when I saw your name as the last poster there'd be something impressive! Any child who can't sleep between the top of the bookcase and the ceiling isn't a child worth having, if you ask me.

when it comes to books I keep everything I buy, which just now isn't bad because I've only been seriously buying them for a few years - I have about 300 - but in a few years, and especially after a period of having any kind of significant income (whenever that'll be), it's gonna be a horrifying sight.

Re library donations: around here there's a separate non-profit spin off, called Friends of the Sacramento Library, and they take book donations and run book sales and drum up money for the library. Don't know if that's widespread in other cities.

Goodwill will usually take books as well, if you're totally at a loss for where else to donate.

I left a box of comic floppies in the basement 3 hours ago. They are all gone now. Ideally I hope they bring joy to some kids, but I'm just happy someone is getting some use out of them.

welcome to my world! we (me and ytth) are pretty serious book collectors (shit, we even have special insurance coverage for our book/art collection) but we are pretty discriminating about what we keep: atm there are only a handful of fiction writers that i'm collecting (first editions, signed copies, and/or special editions), and i'm lucky that my husband is an amazing researcher and has found me some very expensive/hard-to-find books for pretty good prices. i buy a lot of paperback fiction which i resell as soon as i've read it. but if i read a new author and fall in love, then i might start trying to collect first editions of all their stuff. ytth's main thing atm is graphic novels and black sparrow press. jointly, we collect art books and small press and fine press stuff.

we moved recently and moving the books was pretty much the worst part... felt like it was neverending!

i am SUPER jealous of sanpaku's set up - i love that display shelf you have going on, such a great idea!