I like to keep my books in wicker baskets on my book shelf. Looks neater that way.

what about the public library, folks? we're paying taxes for them, and we're lucky enough to live in a city with one of the most comprehensive public libraries in the country!

My bookcases might as well have been one of those backdrops that photographers use because I never really opened them. I had bunches of expensive art books that were really too nice to throw out or give away like my paperbacks or best sellers -- I would have felt wasteful. I sorted out my favorites and then listed everything else on amazon's used book site. You do have to visit the post office on a regular basis and it does take time, but I managed to sell almost everything I listed. They also take CDs and DVDs, and there are other sites online that do the same.

I don't think that my book cases look as nice as Mary's did, but I am in the process of weeding through my books, movies (dvd's and VHS) and CDs and selling them all on half.com. It's really easy to post everything. It takes a little while for the stuff to go and you do have to go to the post office, but it's relatively simple and so rewarding on both the getting rid of stuff and getting $$ ends.
Getting rid of CDs so painless- I am burning most of mine onto my computer and selling 90% of them... hopefully after I get the money for all of them I will be able to afford an ipod and then get rid of my cd changer.

Have you gone mad? A home without books...is akin to an apartment without a bathroom...you can live without one but really. I love going to the home of friends and borrowing a book or browsing through their library albeit small.

Having books in the home is in deed a luxury and
we should all have some books in well organized space...booksare a part of actually living in our spaces.

Now lets not speak of this again...

i take a slight exception to item b ("b. books are easier to find today than ever before). while is may be true for many paperback novels you may own, there are plenty of books that only enjoy a single printing and will not be easy to reacquire when the urge stikes.

i've been trying to replace a few books i lent out in 1995 & never got back, and have not been able to even from eBay or Powells Dot Com.

Sorry... I belong to the Never Throw Out a Book Club. Less is more, sure - I cull other less essential things in my apartment on a regular basis - but books... Books are friends! Do you weed out your friends? Make new friends, but keep the old...

OK, a little tongue in cheek, but there are some of us who feel more at home with books all around. I've been known to keep them under my pillow. They're cheaper than traveling, store better than ice cream, are way less maintenance than a dog, and won't ever get up and leave...

Sam-- have you tried alibris.com?

And, for those motivated to sell, I have heard raves from more than one friend about how incredibly easy its been to SELL books on Amazon... they have a whole system set up.

My books are like a map of my life; what I've loved, what I aspire to. There are some that I get beyond and know I will never read, those I get rid of. But when you invest so much time and emotions in some things--I mean the past is part of our present lives, keeping books does provide perspective.

but you could apply that "map of life" theory to just about anything, which is one of the reasons I can't win my own personal war on clutter...

mary to mary --

No one said you have to throw out all your books -- they're great friends and I love leafing through the ones I kept, but I needed the space more than I needed the pretty books. It's one thing to have friends, and it's another to have a permanent house guest or ongoing cocktail party. Post-college I had all these cute little monographs from design school that I didn't need and my three full height bookcases were spiling over into two extra waist-high stacks, plus I kept all of them in my tiny little room because my then-roommate had at least as many in the living room. No more! I have only the ones I really love and use -- my very best friends and a very special party...

As an english major and big reader, the mass accumulation of (and trauma over the culling of) books is near and dear to my heart. I have a few (albeit meager) guidelines for books to cull.
-Books that I should read. As in "oh, that book on political strife in XYZ country-- Marx-- Anna Karenina, I should read that at some point because I will then be a better, more thoughtful person." If I don't want to read it now, I'm probably not going to want to read it later and I will feel guilty when I have to lug it to my next apartment.
-Books that were okay, but with covers that I hated, or with thin, flimsy paper that annoyed me.
-Fast-food style books that I'm not going to enjoy seeing on my bookshelf and remembering or flipping through or re-reading (for me-- chick lit).
I find it's helpful to look through once in a while. It may turn out that six months down the road, the book that I thought I would want around no longer has much meaning for me.
Sorry for the long post, but I had a hard time with the idea of tossing all of categories 3 and 4.

When I was a small child my father went to a used book sale & bought boxes & boxes of books. We had books of all sorts all over the house. If we complained of being bored my 4 siblings & I were told to read a book. We had childrens books, social policy books, Ian Flemings complete works, classic & contemporaro books (I really didn't understand The Bell Jar at 10). That is the type of envirenment I'm most happy in. I guess what I'm saying is books in general can be very important to some people - more important than the value of the information within.

Patrick... yes, Albris is GREAT.

i've had a sort-of "reserve" for this book on Alibris for a couple years... each time a copy is posted as available someone else has swooped down on it in minutes (literally). and this was a $10 paperback from 1995!

i did learn a valuable lesson and now make it my responsibility to remind people of books i've lent them when i want them back!