Describe your book collection

[rousseau]

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.

I gather it depends a lot on what you're reading. For titles that are readily available in e-form and meant to be read in sequence the convenience of an e-reader is great.

Where a lot of the books I read are out of print, not available in e-form, or not meant to be read in sequence. I've bought many physical books that I had an e-version of because I find navigating and reading a physical version easier (where I'm flipping around the book at will). Having to interact with a book through an interface can be a bit cumbersome, unless I'm reading it end to end.

 

[Toni]

I thought I'd give kindle a try but I really dislike the format. I love books, the way they feel in my hands, even the way they smell.

We just had some bookshelves installed, flanking the fireplace, in a recent remodel. There are literally zero rooms in our house, including bathrooms, attic, basement, 4 bedrooms, kitchen, pantry, family room and living room that do not have books in them. Shelves and shelves and boxes and stacks and some, just randomly placed.

Hubby is still in academics so the house is littered with books and publications related to his field. I still have a bunch of biology and biology related books, some texts (I really do need to donate those) as well as more popular press books. We both have our own favorite sci fi and he's into mysteries much more than I am but I will take a moment to plug Tana French's Dublin Murder mystery series. You may have caught the short series that covered 2 of the books. I liked the miniseries well enough but the books are much better. I also like poetry, Shakespeare, Trollope, Austen, the Brontes, Atwood, Tepper, Ephron, TH White, and dozens of others. He collected chess books for a while and other sports related books. I have some gardening stuff. Cookbooks, of course. Lots of popular fiction and non-fiction...

I will be doing more culling this winter, once the cold weather sets in.

One of the nicest things any of my kids has said to me is that one of his main memories of his childhood is that the house was always filled with books and music and that he was profoundly grateful for being raised with both.

 

[rousseau]

One of the nicest things any of my kids has said to me is that one of his main memories of his childhood is that the house was always filled with books and music and that he was profoundly grateful for being raised with both.

I'll be interested to see our children's relationship with books as they age. So far we're going with pediatric recommendations and making sure he gets no screens at all until .. I can't remember, but I think it's between three and five. And he has his own shelf of books in our study, books in our bedroom, living room, and another shelf in his toy room. These are scattered among my collection that he's also shown interest in (he'll bring me my books and fan through them occasionally). We're reading throughout the day, almost every day.

It'll be interesting to see where it goes and how into my collection he gets when he's older.

 

[ideologyhunter]

My recommendation for an imaginative child (any child): Joan Steiner's Look-Alikes (she published several books with similar titles; the one I prefer is the one with the locomotive on the cover.) Non-readers can get as much as readers from this wonderful book. Without giving away the treasures in the book, I'll say that the basic idea is photography of repurposed objects, but that doesn't begin to express its uniqueness. I've given this book to my cousin's kids, as they became parents. And I've had a copy on my shelf for 20 years.
Note to book searchers: The book with the locomotive cover originally came out in 1998 with an entirely different cover -- one with ships docked at a big city waterfront, beneath a deep blue sky. Same contents, but on Amazon it's a rare book. On ebay you can find multiple copies of the locomotive edition and the waterfront edition -- just be careful with seller's description, as so many used children's books are marked up or torn up. I would pay a little more to get a book with a detailed description of condition, and I would stick with sellers who allow returns. I once had to return a copy of Look-Alikes that arrived with crayon marks and a page torn in half.

 

[braces_for_impact]

I have 496 books, all digital, a mixture of fiction and non-fiction, on my Kindle paperwhite. I've only actually purchased a handful of those from Amazon, the rest are all sideloaded on there. I use Calibre to maintain my library, which is filling up much faster than I can ever keep up with, but perhaps I'll have more time when I'm old.

 

[laughing dog]

My home book collection is consists only of tangible books. It is well over 1000 books ranging from all types of fiction (baseball, mystery, science fiction and fantasy, comedies of manner and classics) and non-fiction (history, philosophy, and science). We also have lots of children's books left from our children. My wife loves to read fiction of all sorts. We have books all over the house in assorted bookcases and shelves. Some are arranged by subject but there is quite a bit of scatter.