Describe your book collection

[rousseau]

Pedant's corner alert.

My wife and I were discussing buying some more shelving units yesterday to cover a wall in our basement. Three of these. At this point we're perpetually running out of space for books or selling them back to bookstores for credit, and reading is clearly going to be a life-long habit, so we're considering getting ahead of the game and making one of the rooms in our basement more like a library.

This got us chatting about the book collection we already own, and I became curious about the actual size of it. I did some measurements and at the moment we've got about 40 full feet of shelving, and just shy of 400 books to our name. I don't tend to think about this much, but as my wife and I were discussing yesterday I realized how unusual owning that many books actually is. And not only that, but some of our titles reach deep into the depths of esoteric: sociology, obscure history, anthropology, African politics, Eastern religion, poetry. For some of our titles there may be less than 5 - 10 copies in our city of 400k people.

So I thought it'd make for an interesting (if not brief) discussion to chat about our book collections, or collections in general. I know we have a small number of readers and it'd be interesting to hear more about our collections.

For my part, I do own a lot, but I also don't watch TV at all besides a bit of sports, and my entire entertainment budget is basically allocated to coffee, tea, and books, so when you put it into that light it makes a bit more sense.

 

[marc]

I've had to downsize a few time unfortunately. In my teens and twenties there were a lot of D&D novels, and RPG rulebooks, plenty of sci-fi and fantasy works. A friend that I shared books with had a bunch of 'action' book series like The Destroyer, and Casca The Eternal Mercenary. Some thriller/horror books like F. Paul Wilson and Lovecraft. Then got into skeptics society and started reading more in related subjects, such as Brief History of Time, How To Think About Weird Things, James Randi's works, Shermer, Secret History of the Bible, and several about Scientology.

A number of young adult novels have proven to be very enjoyable, such as The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson series. My all time favorite book Ready Player One. Got into the Warhammer hobby a few years ago, and they have hundreds of interesting novels. The whole backstory for the Warhammer 40k setting was an event called the Horus Heresy, which they started detailing in a series of books, which when done will be 62 books total. Not including side novels set around the same events. I've read 13 of that series. Thankfully people don't have to read all of them, as they can just pick the books dealing with factions they like.

Doing more ebooks and audio books now just because I don't have to downsize them. Currently listening to one my nephew sent me Ascend Online, which is in a genre of 'gamelit', where online gaming plays a big part of the story.

 

[ideologyhunter]

I have at least 1000 books. It now weighs on my mind that I may not live long enough to read each one, yet, I can still state to myself why I want to read each book. I have a few books I bought in high school and haven't yet read -- those titles stare at me, and they include Couples by Updike, Lord Jim, and Anna Karenina. I still intend to read them. My collection is heavy on music bio, film, O/P fiction, 19th Century British novels, Shakespeare, U.S. civil rights history, Mormon polemics (I'm downsizing these, as I've read 65+ titles on Mormonism, and I'm all Mormoned-out), Civil War, the great painters, and critiques of Christianity. I have a small collection of celebrity yearbooks (i.e., high school yearbooks with pre-fame John Wayne, Hillary Clinton, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Brad Pitt, and Robert Redford. How's that for the cast of a never-made film by John Waters?) (With absolutely no regard for chronological coherence.)

 

[rousseau]

I've had to downsize a few time unfortunately. In my teens and twenties there were a lot of D&D novels, and RPG rulebooks, plenty of sci-fi and fantasy works. A friend that I shared books with had a bunch of 'action' book series like The Destroyer, and Casca The Eternal Mercenary. Some thriller/horror books like F. Paul Wilson and Lovecraft. Then got into skeptics society and started reading more in related subjects, such as Brief History of Time, How To Think About Weird Things, James Randi's works, Shermer, Secret History of the Bible, and several about Scientology.

A number of young adult novels have proven to be very enjoyable, such as The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson series. My all time favorite book Ready Player One. Got into the Warhammer hobby a few years ago, and they have hundreds of interesting novels. The whole backstory for the Warhammer 40k setting was an event called the Horus Heresy, which they started detailing in a series of books, which when done will be 62 books total. Not including side novels set around the same events. I've read 13 of that series. Thankfully people don't have to read all of them, as they can just pick the books dealing with factions they like.

Doing more ebooks and audio books now just because I don't have to downsize them. Currently listening to one my nephew sent me Ascend Online, which is in a genre of 'gamelit', where online gaming plays a big part of the story.

What was the reason for down-sizing? Smaller home?

Your collection sounds a lot like my mom's. She has a pretty astonishing collection herself that's essentially 100% fiction. It's interesting how people interact with books so differently; my collection has a (very) small amount of fiction, and the fiction I do have was primarily purchased because the books have some level of cultural value that I was interested in.

I have a lot of friends who are into video games, and it sounds a bit funny but I view my life as a bit of a game, and non-fiction plays into that. I'm fascinated by the mechanics of our world, the people in it, and how to become a more effective and happier person over time. So I have a hard time picking up a dense work of fiction and giving it substantial time. Usually I want to know what the point is and move on.

 

[rousseau]

I have at least 1000 books. It now weighs on my mind that I may not live long enough to read each one, yet,I can still state to myself why I want to read each book. I have a few books I bought in high school and haven't yet read -- those titles stare at me, and they include Couples by Updike, Lord Jim, and Anna Karenina. I still intend to read them. My collection is heavy on music bio, film, O/P fiction, 19th Century British novels, Shakespeare, U.S. civil rights history, Mormon polemics (I'm downsizing these, as I've read 65+ titles on Mormonism, and I'm all Mormoned-out), Civil War, the great painters, and critiques of Christianity. I have a small collection of celebrity yearbooks (i.e., high school yearbooks with pre-fame John Wayne, Hillary Clinton, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Brad Pitt, and Robert Redford. How's that for the cast of a never-made film by John Waters?) (With absolutely no regard for chronological coherence.)

Same with me. I can identify some type of value in every book I own that, if I'm not interested in at the time, figure I may be interested in at some point in the future. Just a few months ago I picked up a history of England that I had owned for a number of years but never picked up, singled out an individual chapter, then put it back on my shelf. My interests are fleeting, dynamic, and ever changing. Sometimes I'll come back to a book for a different reason than I bought it for.

If something loses any and all value it goes back to a bookstore for credit or is donated to a second hand shop.

 

[marc]

What was the reason for down-sizing? Smaller home?

Getting married.

Went from living with my parents where I could use the rooms of my siblings who had already moved out to sharing an apartment with my new wife. There were plenty of things I wish I could have kept. Like a signed copy of a book by R.A. Salvatore from his early days in D&D, around '92 I think. They are still coming out with books and video games from the characters he started back then.

I still have to do an occasional purge when my books take up too much space.

Now my wife, she keeps telling me of how before I met her she actually broke the floor in her home because she had so many books. She had to downsize a lot. She still picks up plenty of books, but never has the time to actually read any of them, and many are given away when she declutters.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Generally rectangular prisms, laid next to each other on flat horizontal surfaces, with the bounded end facing out.

 

[Thomas II]

 

[Tharmas]

I have recently downsized my book collection by two thirds. Before that, I had two shelves of history of the WWII air wars, many shelves of literature, shelves full of popular science, varied histories, histories of Christianity, etc. A shelf, in my usage, is a unit of shelving approximately four feet (1.3 m) in length. It turns out that most of our bookshelves are about that size, so it’s a convenient measure for me.

Since my downsizing I have retained three shelves of Modernist, Beat, and Black Mountain poetry (some of it rare and collectible), and about seven shelves of miscellaneous history, literature and popular science books.

I also have a collection of fine books (collectibles). They occupy a little more than one shelf and are valued at between $10 and $15 thousand dollars. I intend to donate them to my Alma Mater before I die.

 

[Politesse]

I own quite a library of books, as I think you know. This, despite making frequent runs to Half Price Books to sell old ones off during my lean college years, and a large number of them wandering off with my ex-wife a few years ago as part of the "amicable"!

Goodreads believes that I own about 320 books at present, though this is almost certainly undershooting as I don't think I ever added my office books or those in storage to the roster. To look at another metric, Amazon reports that I have ordered 260 books from them since I opened my current account with them in 2011, including 138 digital titles still in my possession.

They're arranged into a couple of bookshelves in various places. My office at work has two medium bookcases, with each shelf dedicated to particular subdisciplines of my field: cultural, biological, and linguistic anthropology, semiotics, archaeology, history, philosophy, higher ed pedagogy, and Native American studies. Cultural anthropology and religion both get two shelves each owing to my focus as well as the largest bulk of my classes. Generally, the office books are oriented toward what I think would be useful for students to borrow off of me, so they lean toward introductory texts, common assigned texts for other professors, and reference works. The top shelf is a giveaway shelf to reward office hours attendees, usually doubling as a repository for unwanted sampe books that textbook publishers used to constantly send me. That sales strategy has been declining in recent years as printing gets more expensive, so that shelf has been shrinking and may be downsized to just a box soon. The bottom three shelves hold back issues of the professional journals I have a print subscription to, not sure if those count as "books" or not but they are certainly on my bookshelves, and some (especially the Annual Reviews) are easily book-sized. These are likewise used as a lending or giveaway shelf, so none of these collections are particularly complete.

At home, the shelves are not organized as neatly, but I do keep to general themes as far as which room and bookshelf. My home office has another two smallish shelving units to either side of my work station, usually containing anthropological works on whatever my current research interest might be, as well as reference works that I expect to use frequently when creating new course content etc. The bulk of my Native American Studies collection resides there as well, and lately a growing collection of works on legal and jurisprudence issues. This used to be all about Indian Law, but recently my interests in cross-cultural legal studies have been expanding beyond those bounds. This summer saw an explosion of works on ethnic studies and critical race theory, as may not be surprising.

Also in that room, a much larger bookcase holds my fiction collection, sort of decorating the back wall that the camera faces when I'm lecturing over Zoom (my map collection is also back there with a faux-antique globe, because I am just such a classy guy). I read a lot of fiction works, especially during the summer, but usually sell them all back to Half Price Books at the end of said summer, so remaining in the permanent collection is something of an honor. To avoid confusion, books currently in perusal are stored stacked rather than in rows. This bookshelf also contains a small collection of poetry, and an even smaller collection of films and other media, mostly those that I sharescreen clips from in connection with my lectures.

The living room is shared ground for my boyfriend and myself, so ownership is a bit hard to determine in some cases. The two large bookcases by the window mostly contain the books he brought with him from Michigan, but the other two contain works that have been acquired since, and often out of mutual interest, so we'd have to have a small debate if we ever had to divy them up? Subjects in this room tend toward technical and science subjects, engineering, history, philosophy, self-help, and contemporary social matters. There is a small but noble collection of classic science fiction on the shelf nearest our reading nook by the window. A small bookcase at the top of the entryway is dedicated to religious and devotional literature, and an even smaller one next to it is my music book collection. In the bedroom, another large bookcase rounds out the set. It'd be hard to pin down a subject other than "miscellaneous", but it tends toward nonfiction works that I've read but that were good enough to warrant keeping and revisiting from time to time, or whatever my evening reading is at the moment.

And of course, there's my aforementioned Kindle collection. This is characterized by a slightly bipolar mix of current research interests and the bulk of my summer fiction reading habit.

Very few of my books have any real monetary value; I'm not that kind of collector.

 

[Politesse]

I have at least 1000 books. It now weighs on my mind that I may not live long enough to read each one, yet, I can still state to myself why I want to read each book.

That is very relatable. A shameful number of the books I own are ones that I've read the introduction and first chapter of, but set aside. If I haven't donated or sold it, I honestly believe against all evidence that I'm "going to read" them all someday.

 

[rousseau]

Topic wise the biggest part of my collection is history. In our study we have three separate bookshelves, and the biggest one (about 8 feet by 4 feet) has three full shelves of history, including a collection of antique (but not overly rare) books. Below that is a shelf of popular non-fiction that I've held on to, and a number of my books 'on Africa' (which ranges from anthropology, political science, history). Below that one is a slimmer shelf with a lot of my antique fluff - magazines, newspapers, and other esotera. And below that one is a much taller shelf that houses my textbooks from my undergrad days (mostly medical science based). Apparently even at age 22 I had the awareness that I'd want to reference some of these texts again one day (and I have).

To the right of that shelf is a much smaller bookshelf that houses my collection of business books, Eastern philosophy, fiction, works related to theatre. And on the opposite side of the room from the big shelf there is a third that my son has taken over with kids books. I still have a corner of it that houses mostly books related to art, art history, the poetry I'm not as interested in, and a few on mindfulness and mental health.

In our bedroom I have about 8 feet of shelving, half of one row is made up of the poetry I'm interested in, and the other half is a selection of books from my entire book collection that I'm interested in at the time (so I can pick them up at will). Books have started encroaching on the second row now, and one of the quadrants is mostly occupied by my copy of Weber's Economy and Society (which is huge).

And more recently a lot of the reject books that I'm not very interested in have been relegated to a shelf in our basement living area. Mostly stuff that I know I don't really want to read. There is a lot of fiction, some poetry, and some books with sentimental value (former gifts). I have an appointment next Friday at a local to sell a number of these.

And hidden away in a closet in our study I have a collection of magazines, Foreign Affairs, Canadian Art, a wide selection of Playboys throughout it's history.

Out of the entire set there are a few interesting and less commonly seen books. I own a copy of The Cambridge History of Ancient China, Weber's Economy and Society. I also have a first edition of Leonard Cohen's Death of a Lady's Man and The Energy of Slaves. Somewhere in there there is a set of Crawford Young's titles on African politics. Some others are a bit unusual, but a little more common.

One of the things that stands out to me about the collection is the complete lack of Western philosophy. Many years ago I picked up a few titles then decided the topic wasn't worth it. I do own A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, though.

 

[Politesse]

One of the things that stands out to me about the collection is the complete lack of Western philosophy. Many years ago I picked up a few titles then decided the topic wasn't worth it. I do own A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, though.

Even a casual survey of my shelves pegs me instantly as an Aristotelian, I think. I do believe in balancing European points of view against other philosophical perspectives, though.

 

[rousseau]

One of the things that stands out to me about the collection is the complete lack of Western philosophy. Many years ago I picked up a few titles then decided the topic wasn't worth it. I do own A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, though.

Even a casual survey of my shelves pegs me instantly as an Aristotelian, I think. I do believe in balancing European points of view against other philosophical perspectives, though.

I have a lot of respect for the Western tradition, but to me some of the more refined and modern sciences are an extension of the 'philosophy' of old. I like knowing about the world back then, but information wise I gravitate to work from the past century or so. We're just smarter and more informed now. Even some of the more modern, popular philosophy strikes me as word-play, and far removed from the pragmatics of our actual world.

In my view I've gotten a lot further from studying the mechanics of the world and using that to draw my own conclusions, than reading the conclusions and ideas of others. I often find philosophy ends up confusing people more than it clarifies.

 

[KeepTalking]

One of the rooms in my basement is a library, it is part of the reason we bought the house. It has 3 walls with built in shelves from floor to ceiling, another half shelf along another wall, and a couple of bins of books that are either on their way in, or on their way out. All of the shelves are completely full, and they are by no means the only bookshelves in my house. My home office has a wall and a half of waist high shelves, and another 6 foot tall by 4 foot book case. The living room has two smaller book cases, though less than half of that space is actually allotted to books. Our family room also has a number of smaller shelves that only partially contain books, much like the living room. We also currently have a table in the family room almost entirely devoted to books that we are in the process of sorting through, and are either entering or leaving the house (we are sending a couple of boxes to our son this weekend).

I would say I have well over a thousand books, but really have no idea how far over that number is. I am relatively sure that I have each of the main classes in the Dewey Decimal System covered, so there is that. The pride of my collection is a first edition of A Short History of the World by HG Wells. I would say probably half of my book collection is science fiction, fantasy, and horror, though I do have a good amount of classic literature as well. As I have 4 grand children, the half wall in the library is devoted to children's books, as well as the lowest shelf on one of the book cases in the living room. I also have a number of science books, mostly everything by Carl Sagan, some Stephen Hawking, and a book or two from Dawkins among others. My wife went through a romance period, so I have an embarrassing number of romance novels in the library (many in the 'on the way out' bin). There are also a couple of lightly read volumes of poetry in the library that I will take full credit for having obtained during my college years in a mostly ill-fated attempt to increase my attractiveness to the opposite sex.

The top shelf of the book case in my office is all books on programming languages, and IT related works. Another one of those shelves is 3/4 full with graphic novels (don't get me started on my comic book collection, although, since I have a database for those I can tell you I have 5474 comic books, plus about 20 that I have not entered into the db yet). The waist high shelves in my office are filled with RPG manuals, scenarios, magazines, etc.

 

[southernhybrid]

I gave away most of my books to the local library several years ago. I still have a huge collection of gardening books, although my body won't let me do more than container gardening these days. I don't read books nearly as much as I once did, but I do have a small collection on my kindle. My primary interests have always been mental illness, primatology and the nature and evolution of dogs. I've had a small collection of books on atheism and a few odds and ends, mostly related to animals other than humans. I don't care for fiction any longer, but I still have a book or two of beat poetry for some reason as well as a book or two by Jack Kerouac. I guess my tastes have changed over the years. My favorite dead tree book is "Women without Superstition". It's a collection of short essays about atheist/agnostic women and their contributions to society over the last few hundred years.

I'm not a fan of dead tree books as it's much easier to read books on my kindle. You can carry around a complete library and read in the dark.

 

[Tigers!]

My wife often comments about the number of books I have, spread over 3 walls in 2 rooms. My decluttering technique is that if I have not read the book or opened it in the last say 5 years, it is unlikely I will do so in the future so out it goes.
My tastes are reasonably wide - philosophy, theology, history (esp. military), mathematics/science and ornithology of Aust. birds . In the last 5 years I have developed a taste for historical military fiction (P. O'Bryan, D. Pope, Conn Iggulden et. al) : where that came from I do not know.
I do have the compete complete of the Footrot Flats comics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footrot_Flats + many Andy Capp, Peanuts, Hagar the Horrible Phantom, Asterix & Tintin comics. The comics are my vice.

 

[Tigers!]

I'm not a fan of dead tree books as it's much easier to read books on my kindle. You can carry around a complete library and read in the dark.

I concur with the Kindle types. just so much more convient.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I cannot stand reading electronic platform books for fun.
Weirdly, i adore the electronic manuals i use daily at work, with searching, printing, bookmarking. Quite handy.

I can see four book cases from where i sit now. Five more in our bedroom. At least two in each kid's bedroom. Seven in the basement. When we moved last time, there were 60 boxes of books. That was 20 years ago.

We have cookbooks going back two generations. One from when Log Cabin came in little log cabins next to the air fryer books. A book on Shakespeare-era recipes that's provided our annual Xmas dinner of pork loin stuffed with grapes and wrapped in pancetta. Beside the His Turn To Cook book with a dynamite shrimp creole dish. And the D&D cookbook....
Lots of fantasy, scifi, thriller. Military references, literary ref, a range of works on Star Trek, Star Wars, James Bond, British comedy shows, content, personalities, episodes, D&D manuals from 1980.
Comic strip collections, heavy on Doonesbury. Comedy writing. Just, just, just stuff. Almost never met a book i couldn't finish. Only one i can recall is 50 shades. (In college with a sexually active roommate and she doesn't even know what oral sex is? Please...)
Picture books, travel books, coffee table books, Lego, and the encyclopedia set we bought when our first kid was born. Minus the F volume he set on fire....

 

[spikepipsqueak]

I like this "books-by-the-yard", as a rough approximation. About 43 m of shelves, not counting what's stacked on the floor or still in boxes in the shed. All that would be on shelves if I had more shelves, or somewhere to put them.

Once when discussing Aspergillus mould with an allergist, he asked me how many books I had. I told him about a thousand, and he gave me that look that says "You? I don't think so." I must look really dopey.

About 30 years ago I had the idea of buying some long Rimu uprights, drilling them with holes like flexible kitchen shelving and solving many of my problems. That accounts for maybe 29 meters and has served me well, covering one wall in my last 4 houses and being easy to move. Currently a bit precarious as I couldn't find the studs to anchor it this time, so it's held together by the weight of the books and prevented from toppling by keeping the books pushed well back against the wall, and wedges shoved under the front.

As to content, this move has been the first time I've housed the sci-fi and general fiction together. It still doesn't feel right though I quite like the "odd bedfellows" aspect. They fill that wall. Also in that room in 2 other book cases, sociology, psych, biographies, poetry, plays, dictionaries, some of the humour, quilting and some assorted odds and sods.

One little bookcase in the boys' room for when they visit, full of Emily Rodda, Eoin Colfer, John Marsden, J.K.Rowling and all age groups leading to that one.

In the living room a little tall narrow one in the corner with gardening, health and nutrition, bird identifiers. In the other corner some of the beautiful ones. A Day in the Life of ..... places, plus Footrot Flats, Snake!, B.C., Leunig, the remainder of the humour that wouldn't fit in the other room, 3 different copies of Hoyle. Here also live the games.

Secondhand books are unsaleable here, and I've been volunteering at Vinnies and seen how many of the donated books go straight to recycling, or (sometimes) rubbish. It breaks my heart, so I put any books I'm not keen to read again in a street library. If I think they are particularly devoid of merit I have been able to break my conditioning and use them to light the fire. Oddly liberating, but I can't do it without some serious thought.

I figure, what with rereading faves every now and again, if I don't buy any new books or borrow anything from the library I will still have interesting material to read until I die or my eyes give out. How to dispose of this lot will then be my son's problem.