Do any of you just buy books to add them to your library?
Knowing you may not get to them for a while?
What do you do, do you only add it to your library if you read it?
Do you limit yourself when you see books and say you already have a waitlist at home?
Edit: typo
The only thing that stops my book buying is storage space. I…… I may have a problem.
Yup, your problem is that you haven’t realized books can be used as building material for more book storage. I recommend finding thick books that disappointed you for bricks, otherwise it might be a distressing process.
I once lost my wife for 3 days. I had left her by the stacks of CS Lewis books for only a moment. 😄
I have one shelf on my bookshelf which is for books I haven’t read yet. I’m allowed to fill it up however much I want, but never spill out of it. It’s been pretty good for me.
My wife and I used to go to used bookstore all the time and do this. We have a lot of books. We both like to read, but work a lot so have little time to actually finish a book.
Hopefully as we get older we will have more time.
Good think about books is that they are pretty hardy.
I mostly read on Kindle Unlimited. A lot of the progression fantasy and cozy fantasy books are on KU (my current favorite subgenres), so there’s no shortage of books to read. In addition, there’s plenty of self-pub fantasy and sci-fi books (there are two competitions: SPFBO and SPSFC which help in finding good ones to read).
My wife and I have a large collection of books, 2 wall to wall bookcases. It’s a lot, and we’ve also donated a lot of books. We buy them all the time. And no, we haven’t read all or even most of them. We’ve probably, collectively, read about 50% of what we have.
We read a lot, but we don’t view books as just something to read, but also something to collect. Much like some people collect and display coins or figurines, we collect books. So we also have a lot of very nice leather-bound, 1st editions etc.
We have toned down our spending the last two years or so because money is a little tighter than it used to be, but we still buy collector editions and support Kickstarter campaigns.
Yeah, I used to be a sucker for doing this with real books and now because I don’t have the storage space I’m just a sucker for doing it with ebooks!
I do only get books that I know I will actually want to read, and it may even take me a year or two to get to it/get around to finishing it but it’s not usually a waste. It sometimes certainly is. But I think the ratio of books I’ll read at some point/books I’ll die without opening it’s much better.
Either way I definitely always have a massive backlog.
I don’t see this as a negative though - I always have something to read!
Yup same here. I have an extensive ebook collection that I’ve been putting together for a while. It helps that I only get them while they’re on sale so it’s actually not too bad (I tell myself)! But yes there are a ton of them.
I have a whole list of books waiting for price drops as well that get added to the pile. My general rule is that if it’s <$5 and it’s on the list I get it.
I’m only allowed one shelf dedicated to TBR. It has helped a lot.
I buy books, most of the times I read them. ebooks have been my salvation space wise, project Gutenberg saved me money wise, at least for the classics.
Don’t look at my spines. DON’T LOOK AT THEM
but yes, I’ll read books on my computer and then get a physical copy if I like it. I tell myself I get them so I can re-read them or lend them out, but I never do lol.
I pirate most books, but if I really like them then I’ll buy a physical copy to support the author, usually a nice hardcover. I got the Brandon Sanderson secret projects Kickstarter with hardcovers and epub which was the first time in a while that I’ve bought books before reading them… But he’s my favorite author, and I’ve loved all three so far so it’s been worth it
I would really love to get one or two small press subscriptions again. I had one from Fitzcarraldo for a bit and it was such a delight when a new one, completely unknown to me, arrived in the post.
But I had to be rehoused into pensioner housing last year and it’s a tiny cottage. For every thing which comes in, something has to go.
Books are hope. And we all need more of that.
I try to limit my book buying already for a few years, by wanting to read a book at least three times before I buy it. (doesn’t always work, but at least it keeps me from impulse buying every book that sounds vaguely interesting.) Also I reread and lent from the library. so I do not always read new books exclusively. And once I read a book I wonder if I see myself rereading it, if yes it can stay, if no it can find a new home by secondhand bookstore or free little library.
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I kind of have the opposite problem. I feel no joy in reading anymore and struggle to find books for leisure which I find in any way interesting. (currently everything I read is textbooks, reference manuals, and some other books about things I want to learn or think I should learn)
I have a strict set of rules, and I’ve managed to hold on to them for over 15 years now.
- I never buy books I do not intend to read in the near future.
- I have a “to-read pile” that never exceeds more than 10 to 12 books.
- No book gets to go on the shelf of my library unless I’ve read it.
Great set of rules! I have failed, not to worry though I will start to apply rules to myself and my shelf.
‘Whatever works’ is always the best rule. I kind of started doing it because I hated going to peoples houses, glancing at every single book in their bookshelves - as every sane person does - asking about a title and hearing ‘oh, I haven’t read that one’.
Thanks for the input and encouragement!
Have a great day!
I used to hoard and display my books, thinking they represented me as a person. About 8 years ago I made a hard decision that I didn’t like my walls lined with shelves and I donated all of them except for a few that I couldn’t part with. Now almost everything I read is on an e-reader and my house only has a couple of occasional physical books out. I’m glad that I did it, since I prefer my new decor.
Awesome!
The only thing is, physical books are harder to censor and get rid of.
Forgot if I heard Dr. Cornel West say it or another person…
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