December 2016 was a hellish month. My mother’s life was ending. My 40-year teaching career was ending. And the usual crush of correcting FINAL EXAMS and handing in FINAL GRADES amid completing piles of Retirement paperwork was a nightmare.
As you might suspect, I had little time to process any of the books that showed up at my door (AMAZON delivers something nearly every day). Friends like Jeff Meyerson sent me books. And, cleaning out my College office with its decades of accumulated books brought dozens of boxes into my basement.
Some people tell me I have too many books. That’s like saying I have too much happiness.
So, my Retirement focus turns to organizing the chaos of books in my basement. I’ll report on my progress every few months. Do you have a book problem, too?
I have way too many books and I live in a apartment. Been trying to use the library more and only holding on to books that I really like a lot. It’s my to be read pile that is causing the problem. I keep reading too many reviews and recommendations that peak my interest.
Steve, I’m the same! I see a review and I immediately want to read that book (and own it!). Like you, I’m trying to use the Library more now that I’m Retired.
Of course I have a book problem:
Not enough space …
I tried to organise my SF collection by author but that meant putting the books onto shelves in double or triple rows and there are still some hiding somewhere – it’s a kind of Sisyphus undertaking …
Wolf, I have resisted double shelving all my life. But, I have too many books and some of them must go in 2017.
I feel a bit cheated. A few years ago you said you never re-read anything; so what do you keep on those bookshelves? And why?
Dan, I said I “rarely” reread books. But there’s always the joy of owning a book like THE DYING EARTH or the “Richard Stark” books. And, then there are the thousands of books waiting to be read.
My book accumulation isn’t a patch on yours, but I don’t have near as much space, either! And what space I do have is also claimed by my toy soldier and model kit collections! I’ve reached the point where things have to go! Linda refuses to leave so it’ll have to be books and some playsets!
Bob, we share the same real estate problem: NOT ENOUGH SPACE! Of course Diane maintains it’s not a space problem, it’s TOO MANY BOOKS!
In the grand scheme of things, having too many books can really be reversed to say, not enough shelf space! After Hurricane Katrina, my husband and I put boxes and boxes of books in storage while our house was being repaired (amazingly, we didn’t lose one book to hurricane damage–but rooms where we had books did require emptying out and repair). A year turned into two, three…eight. We kept paying $100 per month for the storage unit until we finally brought the boxes back (hundreds of them) and stacked them in our garage. Finally, a couple of years ago, we did a ruthless cull–giving away and donating about half of our stash, along with a pledge to buy less and use the library more. We’ve been pretty good about buying NEW books, but when the Friends of the Library has their quarterly sales, I just can’t resist a few purchases!
Deb, I’ve donated over 30,000 books to the State University of New York at Buffalo’s Special Collections over the years. I plan to donate more now that I’m Retired and I have time to cull all the books in my basement. Library Book Sales lure me, too!
30 000!
And I thought my 15 000 was already over the top …
I wonder what’s going to happen to a friend’s books – he’s a retired biology prof, rented apartment full of books, noc children. If the university doen’t take them (and they don’t have room either …) will they be put on the garbage heap?
Wolf, you can check out the Kelley Collection at http://libweb.lib.buffalo.edu/kelley/
You know that I have too many books. Or not enough space, since one can never have too many books. I love my books. I love to burrow though them like a gopher and toss them up and let them hit me on the head.
Bill, I completely relate to the tactile sensuousness of books. There’s nothing like holding a great book in the palm of your hand. And, of course, reading books that most people don’t have (ACE Doubles for an example) is also a thrill. Whenever I’m searching for a book in the basement, I marvel at all the great books I’d forgotten I owned!
Sounds a lot like Scrooge MvDuck in the money bin, Bill.
Old Scrooge does that with money as I remember from my old Disney comics …
Btw his name in the German version is uncle Dagobert. 🙂
A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, got a gig translating Italian porno comics into English. He borrowed Scrooge’s famous lines for an extremely scatological scene. I’ll leave the particulars to your imagination. By the way, you forgot the “dive in it like a porpoise” part.
I have been culling my collection for the past several years. I really got a shock when I put my PG Wodehouse collection all together. I believe I have a copy of every one of his books in hardback (haven’t yet checked against the bibliography) and found I had multiple copies of many books in HB, as well as many pbs. I also had duplicate copies of books about him. I put one copy of each on the 4 shelved barrister book case dedicated to him, which is double stacked in places. I also kept out exlib copies, etc as reading copies and have begun re-reading them.
I culled many mysteries over the past 10 years or so. And I’ve culled my nancy drew books For a while in my late teens and early 20’s I began getting them again. I concentrated on the older djs. (When I was a kid, I hated dj flaps, so cut them off and taped the dj to the book sigh). I have 2 books signed by Mildred Wirt Benson, the author of the original series One is a first of the one with Mary Mason as the Villain, and the other is a reprint. Those will be saved, forever. I am in the process of reading and donating the ones I purchased after I had stopped reading them in my childhood. I think I wanted to keep up with them. I also found I had a bunch of the reprints with intros by mystery authors. Many are signed by the author doing the intro. I’ll keep one of each of those.
I’m giving up my storage unit this month. Having a 12 x 8 storage shed built in the back yard, though no books will go in it!!!
Maggie, your Wodehouse collection is worth a pretty penny! I know a guy in Livermore, CA who would be interested if you ever decide to sell that collection!
I’m guessing that everyone who reads your blog has a book problem, George.
Getting motivated to organize the book problem is the biggest part of the book problem. Shortly after I start, I come across something I completely forgot about but totally want to read. So … I start reading it.
I hope to get better at this once I retire.
Beth, I fall prey to the same circumstances. I’m looking for one book, find a different book that I forgot I owned, and I drop everything and start reading it! It’s hard to make progress when that happens! So far, Retirement just feels like a long vacation.
For many of us, our book problem is not really a problem, but for our loved ones…
Jerry, you are so right. My wife Diane is a saint for what she puts up with. Even when I donated thousands of books to SUNY at Buffalo, Diane knew books would continue to flow back into our home.
I guess I’m one of the few without a book problem, for the most part. We have the space, we have the shelves (and the closet space, if that became necessary again), so as long as I don’t go too insane buying, I pretty much have enough room without double shelving or renting storage space.
But then, I don’t have a fraction of the total number of books George has, and I’m sure Bill is right up their in his league rather than mine.
Jeff, you have much better control than I do. I’ve found it hard to resist mysteries and SF books I know are going to disappear (or go into a landfill) with the demise of used bookstores. Even our local public libraries are refusing book donations part of the year. Yet, I know I have to bring my collection down to a manageable size over the next few years. I sure don’t want Diane (or Patrick or Katie) to be faced with disposing of all these books!
Our good friend Bob in England died two years ago and his wife has had a nightmare time dealing with disposing of his collection, which was over 30,000 books the last I heard.
Jeff, I’m hoping to whittle away at the shelves of books down in the basement to get to a manageable number of volumes (like 3000 books). But that goal will take years to reach.
J I so envy your (seemingly) mile long closet at the entry of your apt. I’m now trying to find places to display my old glassware, etc. I also have a lot of small liquor bottles that I’ve collected over the years (an inca pisco bottle in the shape of a precolumbian figure and scotch in a ceramic haggis). I have a medicine cabinet I had made but done wrong, and used it (without glass in the door) to display some of them will look for a new place now
But let me add this story I’ve told before. We were driving through England buying books one year (maybe the early 2000s) and were in Yorkshire (I could probably find the town if I tried, but it isn’t important). I’d been reading the series of biographies of Winston Churchill started by his son Randolph and continued by Martin Gilbert. In the window of a bookshop I saw they had the whole series to that point available as a set in trade paperback. I just wanted the next book, the one I was up to, rather than the whole series, and even if I did, why carry it around the country when I could pick it up in London at the end of the trip? I’m sure Bill can see what’s coming. I didn’t buy it (even though Jackie encouraged me to do so), and I NEVER saw another copy of the set, in London or anywhere else.
So if you see something you know you want, BUY IT!
Jeff, if you remember when I sold books at the Toronto BOUCHERCON, I posted a sign by my bookshelves that read: YOU ALWAYS REGRET THE BOOKS YOU DON’T BUY! Your story has probably happened to all of us: we pass on a book and then can’t find a copy. So you’re right: just buy the damn book! (aka, Keyshawn Johnnon’s famous line: “Just give me the damn ball!”)
Except for 5 or 6 boxes of miscellaneous books unlikely to be read or used, I have all the books on shelves, single stacked. Yes, there are 4 rooms with bookshelves, dining room, 2 bedrooms, office,, plus a small book case for cookbooks near the kitchen, and another small one in the bedroom that’s TBR, but the rest of the house is book free. These days I buy few, use the library as much as possible, and the majority of books I read I then donate to the library system or local charity shop, so some books in, some out. But I never claimed to have a vast library or number of books, I don’t think, maybe 2 or 3 thousand. I’m trying to divest myself of them as I decide things won’t be read or reread.
Rick, I admire your control. My weakness is that I can’t resist a good free (or almost free!) book. For example, on my way home from having lunch with my former boss, I stopped at a Goodwill Thrift store. Someone dumped their entire Sherlock Holmes pastiche collection! So, of course, I had to buy them all. You’ll be seeing reviews of Sherlock Holmes pastiches in the weeks ahead!
I don’t look at it as a book problem except when I end up buying a vintage paperback I already own. Then it’s my own damn fault for not getting that spreadsheet that lists all my books filled out. Yet. The thing is, when you’re mentally ill, you often don’t realize it until you’re better.
When someone once asked Harlan Ellison, collector extraordinaire and my hero, what was the most valuable thing on his shelves, he replied, “The empty space.” That’s my problem, too. I donate some books I don’t care for, even if they’re first edition hardcovers, to the library but I don’t check any books out. I did when I was a kid but now I don’t want to get a book and have a deadline in which to read it.
I have a large, climate controlled room over the garage that is filled with books. Like Bill, I like to go there and lose myself, or like you, George, marvel at the things I’d “forgotten” I have. Even my family, when they go up there, remarks upon the smell of old books when they open the door.
I think when you’re younger, you tend to not want “stuff” because it bogs you down. But when you’re older, why not build an environment you want to be in? In my case and probably that of nearly everyone here, that involves books. I don’t need to go to the library, I have my own. And I thrive in it. McDuck can keep his gold coins–last night I hung out with my Dumas collection after finally getting an undamaged copy of the new THE RED SPHINX from Amazon (there are no bookstores up in the great north woods where I live) (and it took Amazon three attempts).
Today I just got a rare Lionel White first edition and the fifth and final volume of Michael Reynold’s biography of Hemingway. It’s signed by Reynolds, who passed away a few years ago, and though my name isn’t Susan, this book is never leaving my library. The White book, either.
Now I rant, I ramble, I luxuriate in the thoughts of my books. I think I’ll go pay them a visit right now.
Rick, what an eloquent statement about your relationship with books! I remember the thrill I experienced when I found some Lionel White books I’d been searching for for years! There’s nothing like it! When I remove books from my collection, I want them to have a Good Home. Some go to friends, some to the only surviving used bookstore in Niagara Falls, some reading copies go to the North Tonawanda Library Book Sale, but the bulk go to SUNY at Buffalo who has taken very good care of the books I’ve donated to them over the years.
Rick,
When you buy another copy of something you have, I remember Cap’n Bob’s classifications of dupes (duplicates) and upgrades. I think there was one more but it escape me now. Bob??
Although I have some pretty ratty-looking copies, most of my books are in great condition. And you can always give the dupes away to like-minded friends.
I have gotten merciless with donating them to the library sales. I only keep books I really really love or ones I am sure I will read. Megan was shocked at how few books we have in this house.
Patti, you have the Right Idea. I’m trying to buy only books I intend to read (rather than buying a book just because I like the cover).
That’s your problem. Mine is that I’ve bought too many books solely because I liked the cover!
Art, but you have a lot of great looking books!
I’m not sure what the third category is, Beth, but perhaps reading copies!
My current problem is I have a lot of mystery hardcovers from the eighties and nineties that no one wants! I may end up giving them to the Vet’s hospital! Powell’s used to buy 95% of what I brought in, and now it’s one book per carload! The idea that things will go up in value or desirability over time is a fallacy, except in a few cases!
Wow, this really could be called “Die Bücher-Ratte” (The book rat) – I think in English you’d say the book worm site …
There aren’t too many people like you and me around any more though all of my old school friends belong in that group too:
The Egyptologist, the zoologist, the history buff, the SF collector (me) – but among people in general we surely must be a vanishing species …
Wolf, my students prefer to read “books” on their smartphones or tablet computers. The number of stores that sell printed books is falling by the day. So, yes, you and I and anybody else who collects plenty of books are dinosaurs!