apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

moving house is always a good push to weed out books ;-)

i have a wall of books in my living room, and a shelf for unread ones in my bedroom. i go through the whole once in a while and give away what i won't be reading again … not really very painful. i sometimes need the distance, so it might take me a year to realise a particular book should go, but then it goes. i guess i am not at all a hoarder, even though i would hate my rooms without books. they are part of my life, but do not take over.

I do a long term "outbox" of books that I keep out of sight, under my bed. I put any books that I'm considering getting rid of in that box with a post it noting the date I put it in the box.. In six months, if I haven't thought about them again, out they go.

Everytime my public library doesn't have something I want, or it's out for a month, I donate a book or two. Sometimes it's paperbacks or young adult I no longer want/need, sometimes it's book club hardbacks that weren't so great to start with. I figure I'm helping others in order to help myself. I also want to start buying books at Half Price Books and donating those as well. Since Half Price's buy-back prices are insultingly low, you'll never remotely recoup any costs, so why not donate?

I will keep books that I really love or that I will re-read or loan out. My husband i think has a mild form of bibliomania in that he will keep these awfull Starwars books, we probably have hundreds of them and there is no way he will part with them. Luckily most of them are in the basement but its totally irrational. maybe at some point I will get him to at least reduce the volume by 50%

I think my husband has a mild (maybe not) form of Bibliomania. He has thousands of books. This is not an exaggeration. It's gotten to the point where he doesn't even need to buy books. He reviews books so we get free books shipped to us. Yet, when we go to a book store it is rare for me not to see him buy a book. I've tried to get him to organize his book collection since he can never find anything and bought BookCollectorz software to help him organize.

I think I read somewhere in the Apartment Therapy book (or somewhere else) that you should think of making space on your bookshelf as making room for new ideas... that the old books can represent old ideas... (or a place where you were not where you are now). That works really well for me. I halved my books after I read that and put them in my outbox for three months. Today I went through that outbox as I am preparing to move. Out of the 250 books or so I put aside, I returned only 4 books. I've kept books that are relevant to my current interests (TV comedy, songwriting), vintage interior design books that are irreplaceable, reference books, my favourite sci-fi books that I intend to read again, books friends have written and a few art books. My bookshelf is scarily empty now!!!! Yikes! I can't look at it.

The thing that really made me reassess my hoard was the fact that I didn't even realise I had half the books I had. If I didn't know I had them, how could they have been of any use to me?

And... re reference... I always look things up on the internet now... doesn't everybody?

I keep a list of all of the books I read, it is a good way to keep track of the books that I've read without needing to physically hang on to them.

Good novels generally get passed on to friends, the not so good get sold on Amazon or hauled off the the used bookstore. I only keep reference books, cook books and things that I truly loved.

I got my book habit under control in two ways. First, every book I own has to fit on my bookshelf (about 8ft high by 5ft wide). And the second thing is BookMooch which ensures I always have new books coming in, and more importantly, going out!

I have trouble giving up the "I will read this someday books"; I get a fair amount of free books from work, which get pushed down on the reading list when I buy or borrow books that I actually want to read. I think I need to start being more ruthless.

I actually did a count through once, and between my husband's and my collection, we have around 2000 books.

Fortunately these books are currently spread out between our apartment and our parents' houses at the moment. As soon as we have a house, though, we're going to have the most kickass library possible.

I actually don't mind hanging on to a ton of books, even through multiple moves, because I grew up in a bibliophile home where every room and hallway had a bookcase. And it's not a case of collecting "crap" books either - all of them are either cherished rereads, amazing reference books, or true classics that should be in any home. When I do buy a hardcover, I tend to buy it with the thought that I want it to be available for my children. Basically I want to give the huge wealth of creativity and knowledge to my kids that my parents were able to give to me.

Honestly, if I did not plan on having kids, I probably be more of a library reader. But growing up in that kind of home, I want to make sure my kids have the same resource.

That being said, I still get rid of huge numbers of books. The best way to deal with a too-many-books problem is to find a great used bookstore that lets you trade in for credit. In my last purge before I got married, I took *eight* boxes of books into the used book store. The great thing about it is that you lose the temptation to hold only "okay" books because you know you can use the credit to get news ones. And if those books are just "okay" too - hey, just take them back to the store!

If you're only reading to pass the time, dumping books makes sense, I guess. But as a writer, I regularly go back to books, again and again, to re-read a particularly great passage, or to see how a novelist structured a story or handled a technical problem that I'm having with my own writing project. I've never understood how people can get rid of a a great book they've read it only once.

I do purge "junk" books every month to keep the shelves clear, but I still have five floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves, and there's not a single tchotchke on them.

At my office we have a small bookcase full of books that were brought in by me and some of my co-workers. We figured that we would encourage everyone in the office to borrow and/or bring in books so that we can swap and share. We have also expanded it to DVD's and VHS tapes as well too. Its just like the free library, but without the late fees.

We never buy reference books now as TaniaTingel points out. I'm thinking of trying an e-book. I read at least 5 novels a week and they do mount up. I donate as I need the space, for more books.

Ok. Call me crazy. I love books and can't bear to part with them. I have lots of books and read constantly. Sometimes I re-read them, but some are art books or interior design or whatever, and while I don't look at them a lot, I'm glad to have them.

I think a room without books is an empty room. I always marvel at apartments/houses that do not have bookshelves. I don't understand how people live without them. They add beauty and warmth to a room, while being useful and engaging.

I almost never get rid of books. I've been carting them around with me for so long, I don't know if I could get by without them. And, I buy more all the time. In my new place, I have a livingroom wall that is 17' wide and very high ceilings. I bought new bookshelves that are 6' high and as wide as the wall. These are packed with books, photos, doo-dads, what-have-yous. And, there's more in the bedroom. And, on the livingroom tables. And, in the kitchen...

So, yes, I guess I'm a bibliomanic, although I don't have multiples of the same book (I don't think!) and can honestly say that I've read all the books I have. Collecting books is harmless and brings me pleasure, so what's a girl to do?

I recently did a purge of books on my bookshelf, but now I have no idea what to do with the books I want to get rid of! I have a lot of books that charities and libraries don't seem to want (academic journals, old textbooks, yellowed paperbacks, etc.), so they're just sitting in giant piles my den cluttering up the floor. I can always throw them in the recycle bin, of course, but that seems like such a waste.

I agree with Ms. Pea...a room without books is empty!

In the libraries that I've worked in, donated books are used exclusively for fund raising. The books get put out during the book sale to raise special use funds (the highest impact kind of money).

It would be nice if somehow the good ones got into the stacks, but for pragmatic reasons this is almost never done. Because the book buyers at the book sale are such bibliophiles, it never really mattered to me how much the books fetched anyway.

The unsold books were bulk recycled.

A few months ago I got rid of a ton of unused stuff from my apartment. Three boxes of books were given to a used book store, at least as much to charity, and one, I have to admit, forgotten in the car on the way back, ended its life in a paper recycling bin.

I also gave about 40 books to the documentation service of the Tourism Office I work for : History books from university, local history books, children's stories, medieval legends (inspiration for the activities we do with kids), dictionaries and so on. Those are books I would have regretted had I given them away, because they really are useful. I can always consult them or borrow them from work if I nedd them, my colleagues can use them as well, and this way they're no longer taking precious space on my bookshelf.

I only buy books that are either for research for what I'm working on now (I'm an historian), art and photography books (which accrue value), and artists' books (books as works of art). There are a handful of books that have great meaning to me that I will never get rid of. I take out everything else from the library. If I do buy a book that doesn't fall into the above, I give it away after I'm done with it. Giving someone a book that you enjoyed and you think they will is a really special thing.

But I think this mania for getting rid of books (all in the name of editing, of getting rid of clutter) has gone too far-- nothing makes a home warmer and more personal than a wall full of books. I'm always suspicious when I go into someone's place and there are no books.

If you're having trouble with textbooks and journals, try looking up places like Books for Africa or Books for Brazil, etc. Often other countries will be happy to take books that our local libraries would have no use for at all.

I can't believe no one has mentioned http://www.paperbackswap.com! I saw BookMooch mentioned, but I much prefer paperbackswap. When I moved I got rid of all my "junk" books, but I still had a hard time getting rid of the "okay" or "read someday (yeah right)" books. Luckily, they all fit on my shelves. Now, with PBS, I never increase the number of books I own. For ever book I request, I need a credit, which means I need to send a book out.

Also, as an extra bonus, you can use you book credits to get CD's and DVD's!

We didn't think we could weed out our books because we were simply book people. It was part of our identity. Then we had to do 4 moves in a year and a half about six months apart. That will make you really reevaluate what's important.

I am down to one shelf of books. All of them are reference books, and diy style things. I rediscovered the library for everything else. If the library doesn't have it, I buy it, then donate it to them when I am done.

I actually feel great about it. I never thought I would be comfortable with so few books, but it's very freeing.

Yeah, Kaete, send the poor people your soiled underwear Goodwill won't accept while you're at it.

Sending textbooks to impoverished countries is NOTHING AT ALL like sending soiled underwear to Goodwill! What a truly ridiculous and ignorant statement.

Every university requires different texts, and new editions of the same text come out every two years. This does not make the previous edition obsolete, especially in a field like mathematics, grammar, or music theory.

I used to work for a compulsive book hoarder, in her bookstore. It made me realize how not-rare books are. The overflowing store cured me of the desire to collect books forever. The store was so bizarrely overstuffed that a local guy started a webcomic about it being haunted by demons!

cristal, that is a rather stupid and rude comment. and not at all true. it is called sharing, you know, and some people really need these things even if some of the richer people of this planet may not be able to understand that.

"But I think this mania for getting rid of books (all in the name of editing, of getting rid of clutter) has gone too far-- nothing makes a home warmer and more personal than a wall full of books. I'm always suspicious when I go into someone's place and there are no books."
yes, same here, Limonata :-D

Hi, I'm _____ and I'm a bibliophile who is about to clean out the bookshelves for the first time. How appropriate! I reread my books often and there are several very powerful ones that I will keep even if I only read them once every decade. Otherwise, I've become a big fan of the fantastic Seattle library system and have managed to reduce my book buying budget. This will not prevent me from buying another large expedit bookcase & lining an entire wall with my babies, though.

Thank you for bookmooch & paperbackswap site recommendations!

"Yeah, Kaete, send the poor people your soiled underwear Goodwill won't accept while you're at it."

Well, obviously if you have a book that's unhygienic (covered in shit, black with mold, crawling with bugs, etc) you should throw it away or recycle it. That pretty much goes without saying.

A little yellowing of the pages or some highlighting/doodling from former students? They're still perfectly good learning resources, and many desperate kids out there will be happy to get books at all.

These days I barely ever buy books anymore, and exception could only be made for something that'll be used over and over again (reference book or a cookbook). Even with exceptions, I first get them at the library to see whether they are as useful as I imagined them to be.

Public library is a godsend!

Getting rid of books? In Soviet Russia books get rid of you! Now seriously, it's so hard to part with them I should consider myself lucky my brother never bothers to give back the ones he borrows. Hard as I try, it's hard for me to get rid of books at all.

There's some middle ground here, but having been involved in a project to get an American-style library built in (recently re-devastated) Haiti, it was really astonishing that people would donate 99% inappropriate books.

1) Most of the countries to which people send these books don't have English as a first language and the populations that these books go to are the least likely to speak second languages.
2) Public libraries often have policies to remove books with ANY medical content within 3-6 years, which is tragic to see when the book is great, but then you realize how wrong medicine constantly is - margerine and hormone replacement therapy anyone?
3) Finally, the number of donated books that are near self-published toward the ideologically extreme ends of the world (and which you never ever see in book stores) makes the intellectual colonialism of these books staggering. Not to point at any one ideology (it takes all kinds), but the amount of unwanted, donated self-published proselytizing evangelical poetry is staggering. There are a lot of books that are fundamentally problematic, because they have been decontextualized, for a poor Haitian community to house and loan: from books advocating abortion in a country where those services, provided informally, can be fatal, to (steak) protein-only diet books. Luckily, in my experience, none of these books are ever read and quickly succumb to tropical moisture.

Although I think it's critical to support learning and reading across the world, I'm closer to supporting the "dirty diapers" perspective than the "oh how generous of us" perspective.

thanks for those rules on limiting my home library!

i like to keep my old textbooks, even for the classes that aren't in my major, but that's my one splurge

Come to think of it, Easyenough presents a really ugly situation: the rest of the world becomes stupid because we gave them the books that were not good enough for us to read in the name of goodwill. And then we blame them for not being proactive in taking control of their own destinies. That's neocolonialism for you.

I used to keep every book that came into my hands (although I have to admit that I did read them), but now I'm brutally honest as to whether I'm likely to read it again - if not, out it goes. I donate a lot of them to my local library, but like Craftypants, I also use paperbackswap.com.

When I was moving last year, I donated some before the move, and as I was shelving them in my new home, decided to let go of more. I did donate a box to the local Goodwill store, but since I shop there for books on a regular basis it was really disconcerting to see my books on their shelf - I found myself wanting to take them back home.

"Bibliomania"? What a crock!

You name it, and someone, somewhere, will turn it into a disease.