I'd Better Get Started Reading!
By StacyB
@Srbageldog (7716)
United States
January 11, 2018 11:01pm CST
I have a confession: sometimes I hoard books. Lately I have been on a paranormal romance novel kick, and have acquired a TON of new books from our library's used book store. I probably own enough to fill an entire romance section if I owned my own book store. My bookcases are already filled up so I have nowhere to store them properly, so they've been stacking up around my living room.
I know why I hoard books -- at least I think I do. When I was little I LOVED to read, but we were poor and I hardly owned any books of my own. So now as an adult, I will sometimes go hog wild over buying books. I have a hard time parting with them, even if I've had a book for years and have never read it. About a month ago I finally cleared out a bag's worth of books, which I donated to the library. But now I've acquired at least double or triple the amount that I got rid of! I don't plan on keeping all of them -- once I read them, I will probably donate some of them back to the library. Unless I love them all, in which case I need to invest in a new bookcase dedicated solely to my romance novel collection. There is a lot of them!
Do you like to read? Do you own a lot of books, and have a hard time getting rid of them?
11 people like this
14 responses
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
12 Jan 18
I'm not sure how many I have total...I've never counted them. Three hundred is quite a bit! Do you ever regret getting rid of any of them, or are you happier now with just having a few?
@Ithink (9980)
• United States
12 Jan 18
OHHH a kindred spirit! I finally gave up a lot and I mean a lot, as in like 20 boxes over the summer. I still have about 7 boxes and a huge shelf with books, along with more upstairs. Yes I'm a hoarder of books and I'm trying hard not to be. Sorry but it is nice knowing I'm not alone.
1 person likes this
@Ithink (9980)
• United States
14 Jan 18
@Srbageldog Yeah I need to go thru the ones upstairs and on my bookshelf in the living room. Doubt I will get rid of many there thou, they are mostly my herbal and medical books. Good luck!!
1 person likes this
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
13 Jan 18
I'm glad I'm not alone, either! I have books stashed up in my bedroom closet, too. I need to go through those ones soon and decide which ones I can part with.
1 person likes this
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
14 Jan 18
@Ithink ...And I bought two more books today. 
1 person likes this
@patgalca (18370)
• Orangeville, Ontario
13 Jan 18
I have loads of books. My shelves are full and so are boxes. I even sorted some out that I am sure I will never read. I will not live long enough to read all the books in my house. But I, like you, just can't help myself when it comes to buying books. I love holding them when I read. I hope some day to hold a book in my hands with my own name on it.
Books I definitely won't get rid of are those that are signed by the author. They could be quite valuable one day and are sentimental to me because I met the authors in a lot of those cases (some of the books I won). That's another thing, I am always entering book giveaways. I don't need anymore books but I can't help myself. It's almost an addiction!
1 person likes this
@patgalca (18370)
• Orangeville, Ontario
14 Jan 18
@Srbageldog The book I am currently working on I believe would fall under the category of Romantic Thriller... but more thriller than romance.
1 person likes this
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
14 Jan 18
@patgalca Best of luck to you! Sounds like a genre I would read. 
1 person likes this
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
13 Jan 18
I enter book giveaways, too! And I agree, it is almost an addiction. I also will never part with my autographed books. They are some of my most treasured possessions.
I hope you achieve your dream of holding a book in your hands with your name on it! I have published several books (most self-published) but I have by no means achieved my dream of being an established author yet. My dream now is to one day see my name on a book in the store.
What kind of writing do you do?
1 person likes this
@scarlet_woman (23463)
• United States
12 Jan 18
not if they suck.i put them on the curb and usually somebody takes them.
but i do need to add more shelves speaking of..
1 person likes this
@scarlet_woman (23463)
• United States
12 Jan 18
@Srbageldog goodwill has a ton of those from what i hear..i guess the 50 shades trend is over..
1 person likes this
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
12 Jan 18
@scarlet_woman Yeah, I read that some used book stores won't take more copies because they can't give them away. They are really horribly written -- I don't know how they even got published. Our Goodwill is always overflowing with them.
1 person likes this
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
12 Jan 18
My boyfriend gave me the "Fifty Shades of Grey" box set one Christmas and I would love to unload those, since they were horrible. But I feel guilty getting rid of them because they were a gift. I will never read them again and I hate seeing them taking up room on my bookshelves!
I wish I had more room in my apartment for adding more shelves...then again, if I got rid of some things, maybe I would have the room.
1 person likes this
@LadyDuck (471573)
• Switzerland
12 Jan 18
@Srbageldog I know I should start to get rid of some, but I love my books.
1 person likes this
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
12 Jan 18
I am glad to know I'm not alone in having so many books.
1 person likes this
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
13 Jan 18
That is good that you can borrow them and return them eventually.
@Hannihar (130218)
• Israel
14 Jan 18
@Srbageldog
Yes it is Stacy. I do not remember when we started doing that but it is very nice.
1 person likes this
@bagarad (14283)
• Paso Robles, California
16 Feb 18
I not only own the books I purchased to read, but also the remains of my online bookstore. I won't even look at used books for sale anymore. I have more than I'll ever read and I collect more on my Kindle every day. My entire living room is full of merchandise boxes of books I'm trying to get donated. I have five very large bookcases and two smaller ones in other rooms. And that's just in this house. In the house we used to live in I have a 16 x 16-foot warehouse full of books I used to sell and in the house I have another entire room full and the upstairs hall is completely lined with full bookcases. One of the bedrooms has five tall bookcases of our personal library and one small one. And there are more, but I won't bore you.
It's really hard to get rid of the personal books, since many are reference books I want immediate access to when I need them. Too many are books I no longer need because they are on subjects no longer relevant to us. Most are nonfiction. I have already donated several carloads of books to thrift shops and ministries, but I've barely made a dent. They are hard to sell now since many people stick to ebooks.
1 person likes this
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
16 Feb 18
It's my dream to have that many books, but at the same time when you don't have the proper space to store them, they start becoming clutter. Nonfiction books are hard to sell, especially when they become outdated. So many beautiful old encyclopedia sets are now worthless because nobody uses them anymore.
Have you considered donating some to your local library? That is what I have been doing with the books I have decided to part with. I always wanted to run my own bookstore, but like you said people stick to ebooks nowadays. We don't even have a bookstore in my city, other than a couple small used bookstores, and who knows how long they will stick around. Used bookstores never last long around here.
1 person likes this
@JESSY3236 (19968)
• United States
12 Jan 18
I hoard, or I used to. My mother would fuss about it. She keep telling I would love having her friend's Kindle that her friend gave her. I gave in and accepted the Kindle. Now I don't buy books at the bookstore.
1 person likes this
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
13 Jan 18
I hoard on my Kindle too. I think I have nearly a thousand books in my library. I was hoping having a Kindle would make me stop buying books, and it did for a while, but alas, sometimes it's cheaper to buy books in print than it is to buy the ebook.
1 person likes this
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
14 Jan 18
My problem is I never know if I will want to read something again later on. So I will often hang onto books even if I don't know if they will ever be read again. If our library had a better selection of books, I would probably borrow from it more often. But they have slim pickin's.
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
12 Jan 18
Yep, and that's not even counting all the ebooks I have on my Kindle!
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
12 Jan 18
That's a good idea! I was thinking earlier that maybe I could find a trading group on FB if I end up wanting to get rid of some of these. That way I could trade the books I don't care for for new ones.
1 person likes this
@andriaperry (116936)
• Anniston, Alabama
12 Jan 18
I used to hoard them too, I sold a lot and donated more, I kept a few and now I just go to the library and check them out.
5 tier book shelves are $40 at Target, maybe cheaper this month.
1 person likes this
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
12 Jan 18
That's not a bad price at all, I will have to check them out! Thanks for the tip.
I was thinking of trying to sell some of my books on ebay, maybe I could make a few bucks and clear out some space in the process.
