How Many Volumes Does Your Library Contain?

That answers yr first related question. I do sometimes read books more than once, generally with about a ten year gap.

too much buddhism
and corny 90's novels
and old reference books

no idea though
whether it's hundreds, thousands...
life's too short to count

I live with a bibliophile who comes from a family of bibliophiles. It is a constant war against the books. Two people maintain three houses, just to hold all the books. No matter how many purges they have, they just keep accumulating and breeding.

My boyfriend has a serious book problem. His father was a typographer, graphic designer and printer, so then there's his enourmous collection of books. His mother is an accademic, so there's her collection of books, research, papers, journals, etc. His grandparents were professional writers, so there's not just their personal collections of books, but the archives of multiple copies of rare and out of print and first editions of the books that *they* wrote.

I don't know the exact numbers, but there's at least a thousand books in our flat, not all of them ours - some are parts of the collections mentioned above. Those collections mentioned above (of which the books in our house are only part) probably have number in the tens of thousands. (Though many have been sold or donated to academic collections, so the real number is... possibly exponential!)

Durgnat: Films and Feelings
Thomson: Biographical Dictionary of Film

NOT proud of that - it's a disease, i wish i had the guts to prune it

If I had kept every book I have owned, read and enjoyed, the numbers would be much closer to 6,000 to 7,000. (I have been at this a long time.) I would also be at my wit's end finding space to store them all. The thought of moving residence would drive me to despair.

And for some shameless self-promotion, please check out my amazon.co.uk book listings!
http://s1.amazon.co.uk/exec/varzea/ts/customer-open-marketplace-items/A28V1OKBYNVB3M/026-2594349-9362827

'Stupid, insipid sort of [book - 1st edition of the rape of the lock]. I never could make out why you recommended me to buy it.'
'I can sell it again for more than you paid for it, sir. The price of it has gone up considerably.'
This savoured a little of business.
'No, you needn't do that,' he said ... 'And then there is another Omar Khayyam.'
'Indded, sir; you've got a quantity of editions of that. But I know it's useless for me to urge you to get hold of the original edition.'
'Quite useless,' Mr Keeling said. 'What a man wants first editions for, unless they've got some special beauty, I can't understand. I would as soon spend my money in getting postage-stamps because they are rare.'

Except for EF Benson makes his character love books for their physical manifestation (beauty) regardless of their edition whereas my 'idea' was that the physical manifestation even should be disregarded.

Tuesday, December 30th, 2003

A Bronx man was found barely alive in his own apartment, buried under a mountain of books and magazines, fire officials said.

Patrick Moore, of 1991 Morris Ave., was saved by neighbors who heard him screaming, authorities said.

The neighbors, including landlord Benny Jones, 62, said Moore, described as in his early 40s, had been stuck under the literary pile for two days and
appeared dehydrated when he was pulled out. "I heard him moaning for a couple of days, but he talks to himself all the time, so I didn't pay him any
mind," Jones said.

He was in serious condition at St. Barnabas Hospital last night.

The story was reminiscent of one straight out of New York City lore. Harlem brothers Homer and Langley Collyer, who lived in a rundown mansion at
Fifth Ave. and 128th St., were both found dead in 1947, crushed by an enormous collection of newspapers and clutter.

Homer Collyer had been blind, and Langley Collyer collected the papers "so he could catch up on the news when he regained his sight." When an
anonymous phone call led the Fire Department to their home, it took searchers 18 days to find their bodies among the clutter, which, in addition to the
newspapers, included a Model T and 10 pianos.

inevitably the first question i hear when one is confronted by the endless bookshelves/bookpiles in our small apartment is "have you read all of these?"

of course not! who wants a library full of books you've already read?

*sigh* Quite envious of those with the 1500+ count going on... But then, where would I house them all?

I'm seriously considering asking some of my customers if they'll will their libraries to Oxfam when they die. The money I could make!

A silly number, which I'm normally fine with but like you can quote Benjamin quoting France all day until you actually have to move house

Yes, I've got the same problem. I have been getting rid of hundreds at a time but still might end up having to hire a removal van just for books.

when i moved i got rid of 2/3 of my books. kinda regretting it now, even though it was completely necessary. like scott upthread, i just like having them around me.

Like thomp upthread I have v few possessions otherwise but I don't think I could get rid of the books. My new landlord helped me move & when he saw how much I had he was like "do you... need all of these books?" I gave the usual blather about how I know it's a bit weird but really you can't have too many books, if you're gonna have a shitload of anything it may as well be something enriching like literature &c... He thought for a sec then said "yeah, I understand. I see people come into the shop sometimes and read books. It's a sickness"

congrats/good luck on moves
own ridic number as well, but half are currently in storage far away :(
symbolic of life rn

I've been cutting down the amount of books I own, but it's been a long - more than 5 years - process. I have a rule that if I haven't read a book in two years, then it gets given away. Unless it's some rare reference book in which case I sort of feel obligated to keep it.

We unloaded 1000+ volumes in July -- sold about 300, gave the rest to Goodwill. Still have at least that many more. When I move in a few months, I won't have room in the car for anything but computer & clothes, so I'll have to put a bunch of stuff in storage.

i still buy a lot but for the last 6 years i've had the outlet of my store which is nice if i just want to unload some things i know for a fact that i'm never going to read again or even read a first time. i brought all the crime paperbacks i'd read in the last couple of years to the store a while back. stuff like that. never gonna read them again. but i keep all the SF i have been buying like crazy.

(i downsized the amount of books in my store by about 2/3 though. just wasn't selling enough. filled the shelves with CDs. i do better with those. i loved curating my shelves with cool oddities, but i could go a week and only make like 20 bucks on books and that is just sad. after i got rid of them of course i heard from all the people who come into my store once a year that they missed my selection. which is nice but...)

(i did sell a TON of books in my first five years, but it just wasn't adding up. i like to sell books cheap. there are soooooooo many books around here. you can load up at a libary sale and never have to step into a used book store.)

I think my numbers have crept up from 350 or so up to nearly 500 volumes. I know I ought to do a purge soon.

i've done one major book purge in my life, it was like 6 years ago when we moved from a spacious place in western MA to a smaller apartment in boston. i totally regret it. it was mostly philosophy books from college and i doubt i would read them much at all but yea i really did like having them around me. we are not even in that tiny boston place anymore, now we have a 3-bedroom, it was stupid to ditch them. they were beautiful books, too. never again!

i say the same thing when i do cd purges -- never again -- but idk it bothers me less w/ those

my wife just unloaded a bunch of her books and our collection (about 4 ceiling-height shelves worth) is now steadily being whittled down to just my stuff. I periodically will get rid of stuff I don't think I'll ever read again and/or is widely available or no longer seems relevant to me. I've gotten rid of a lot of fiction I figured I would never read again (Salman Rushdie springs to mind) but can't bring myself to part with my near-complete collections of Mahfouz, Calvino, Cortazar, Narayan, Borges. The sci-fi shelf is of the one that gets the most love from me, I will never part with those. Although sometimes I look at them and am reminded of how (literally) worthless most of the books are to the general public, how they will just fade into obscurity or vanish from our culture entirely, and probably within my lifetime and that makes me sad. When I die my kids will be thumbing through my tattered paperbacks of "Age of the Pussyfoot" and "Dr. Adder" and shake their heads and say "dad sure was crazy"

I have relatives who collect sci-fi novels and those are worth pennies unless they're first editions. Rows and rows of books by Aldiss, Asimov, PKD, Clarke, Harrison, etc., etc.. Ironic given how much TV and film today is influenced by them.

there is a pretty major paperback sci-fi collection at one of the University of California libraries....Irvine maybe? Riverside? one of those

the authors i love i never get rid of obviously. i even buy extra copies for no good reason. munro, highsmith, frame, spark, etc.

i am totally addicted to SF paperbacks. i have hundreds i haven't read yet.

ok riverside

http://eaton.ucr.edu/

"The Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy, formerly known as the J. Lloyd Eaton Collection of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Utopian Literature,[2] is "the largest publicly accessible collection of science fiction, fantasy, horror and utopian and dystopian literature in the world".[3] It is housed in Special Collections & Archives of the UCR Libraries at the University of California, Riverside.[4] It consists of more than 300,000 items, including hardcover and paperback books, SF fanzines, film and visual material, and comic books, including manga and anime, as well as a variety of archival materials.[5]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eaton_collection

That's one of the secondary reasons that I donate my excess books - I'd rather give them away then try and eB4y them or have to put up with some book dealer trying to lowball me.

xp there are probably similar collections for old IT books, but frankly their resale value makes sci-fi paperbacks seem like Dickens first editions by comparison.

Ironic given how much TV and film today is influenced by them.

the PKD stuff has at least reached the point where there are loving reprints by the LOC but yeah I'm baffled at how these books - widely influential, often with fantastic designs, etc. - are just barely above garbage in terms of their economic value.

which, on one hand, is great cuz now w the internet I can find things that previously I would have had to scour endlessly for for super-cheap. But it does bum me out, just the lack of respect for the genre and its history in general. People that toiled in obscurity, barely scraped by (for the most part), buried in ignominy while corporate culture picks over the bones and makes bajillions.

xxp

whoah did not know that about the Eaton collection! which is weird cuz I was born in Riverside, my grandfather was involved in the founding of UCR, family goes back generations there etc.

i wouldn't think they would want too many people handling the old paperbacks. those things can fall apart in your hands.

re: eaton, they obviously can't collect everything but i do think it is very very cool that a major research library has a large special collection devoted to this stuff

very cool outic! xp

ok lol, this is my people: Eaton was also the first president of the Elves, Gnomes, and Little Men's Science Fiction, Chowder, and Marching Society, and served as the editor of the group's sercon fanzine, The Rhodomagnetic Digest.

lol

just barely above garbage in terms of their economic value

I take heart in that Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, and other such writers were similarly undervalued for a long time, but over the last two or three decades have become given something approaching respect.

lol yeah I'm a bad "collector" in that v few of the books I own are worth anything

I have no idea how books are priced, seriously doubt I have anything of monetary value beyond the couple things I inherited that are 100+ years old

and nope just looked and even those are like only $40 lol

being 100+ years old rarely has anything to do with a book being valuable. it's usually quite the contrary. 99% of 100 year old books are pretty much worthless, because no one reads them or cares about them any more and even if they do still get widely read, the newer reprints are probably going to be in better shape and more attractive to readers.

The sweet spots are a) first editions of 'important' books and b) books highly esteemed by a small group of aficionados who are too few in number to merit reprinting them. then, as age makes the remaining volumes ever rarer, the price continues to creep up while demand for them continues.

what about my nth-hand copy of the doll who ate his mother

Looks like scads of reprints for that title, so your fortune is not yet secured.

Since childhood, I've checked far more books out of the library than I own. I just couldn't own the number of books I read a month.

you don't give yourself enough credit. i really think you could own that many books.

you could have it all

Not if I want to invite dudes over. No way we're lying on my Spark collection, although Loitering With Intent makes sense.

I too have returned to the library as I've gotten older. it's just more sensible.

I couldn't read the number of books I own in a month

Or less glibly: I had a few weirdo years of reading a couple of books a week on average but now it goes in & out (& never gets near that). I know that if I check out the collected prose of Elizabeth bishop, it won't be read before it has to go back. And even if I could theoretically finish it, it's the sort of book where finishing it is beside the point. Better to have it.

you don't give yourself enough credit. i really think you could own that many books.

I'm living proof of this. Have about 10,000 books. Being into book design does not help with this, but because of that I'm trying to read genre stuff on the iPad, since it's almost all as ugly as fuck cover-wise

Very few of them are worth anything. I've got rid of a thousand or so over the last few years, but it's just depressing seeing how a huge crate of books turns into not even enough money to buy a new hardback.

I steeled myself to the hard realities of book divestiture decades ago. There is no way to win that game, only ways of mitigating one's losses.

Mainly, I buy 95% of my books at charity or thrift shops, and over the years I have learned which books are most likely to be purchased by a bookseller, or redeemed for credits, and which will almost certainly be rejected. In this way I keep my cost per book as low as ingenuity can make it, while yet keeping a steady stream of reading material I'm interested in flowing in my door.