how many books do you actually own? and keep in your house?

I think books look tidier if you have them in floor to ceiling shelves and they are crammed in together. And stashed by size. I have shelves that go all around the top of the bannisters upstairs which are great.

fellatio - not yet. Surprisingly :o

Has anyone been along to tell us book-o-philes that we are a bunch of middle class smug stealth boasters yet?

Last time I counted (beore having dc, when i had more time on my hands) we had about 3000. Must be more now - another 500? About 1000 arer boxed up in the attic, the rest are on bookshelves around the house.

Too many to count. We have a decent-sized study that is booklined around 2 1/2 walls floor to ceiling, several bookshelves full in the childrens' rooms and piles here and there.

In the whole house including the children's I'm going to guess and say about 700-800, but possibly more. I'm always getting rid of paperbacks, though I tend to keep reference books and classic fiction.

I have about 160 cookery books alone.

I want that stairs one too!

ooh, yes, i like that stairs one!
one to think about when you're renovating your house

also, we have a long living room, so we've divided it by having bookcases along behind the settee.

Resurrection
the best way is to store like together - so each shelf has the same publisher, or the same sized books on it.
(you cna be more efficient with shelving too, then - because you can fit shelves into bookcases according to size, so you don't have huge gaps)
what about the landing?
Most houses have that useless bannister going across the top of the stairs - it's waist height, so you could fit 3 shelves along there.
above the stairs in that gap?
what about above doors? you can usually fit a row of paperbacks across the tops of doors.

About a thousand. When new books come in, some old ones have to move out. We keep the charity shop well stocked.

Thousands, but find it hard to take leave of any of them, even when feeling cluttered. PLEASE any tips on storing them so that they don't look like clutter? I agree they can add warmth (in all ways) to a house, but at the moment mine just look like clutter to me.

Been looking up new ideas www.readallaboutit.open-books.org/?p=905 but most of them are too wacky to be practical.

Loads - Reading my favourite thing & I'll read almost anything!! I love my books, some are part of my memories & have impacted hugely on my life. Most are a bit dog-eared, some v. dog-eared but books are there to be read and loved and mine certainly are :)

I don't know ..I don't keep every book I buy though

Swan river! You're getting rid of Lawrence Durrell???? He's fantastic! Won't you want to reread them one day?

No idea. Thousands. I had a couple of thousand before I got married and that was getting on for 15 years ago. Since then, I've acquired all my parents' books, my younger brother's, and quite a few from my grandmother which she had as a child, as well as all dd's, dh's and the books we've got since we married. Needless to say, everyone in my family is a bookworm!

We've got quite a few anyway.

As few as possible, this is why public libraries are wonderful. I only keep ones I really treasure & can imagine wanting to see on my shelves to read again or remind me how good they are or to encourage DC to read.
Just dust collectors, otherwise. "Stuff" I own always oppresses me, the less the better.
That said, my "few as possible" probably includes about 120 fiction and 600-ish non-fiction (many biographies), with several hundred more volumes for each of DC.

but I collect "out-of-date" textbooks!

they make up my history section.
One of the things I love most is goingthrough old editions, or old science books/atlases etc to see how things have changed.
I've got a couple of different editions of my Materials Science book - one from the 60s and one foerm the 90s when I did my degree. It's fascinating to see how things have changed.
Also, I have a School Atlas that is dated 1941 - when I was doing History at school, it was very, very useful, as then the country lines were correct for the time we were studying.
It also became useful because of the splitting up of Eastern Europe at that time, and my out-of-date atlas suddenly became more relevant to the Political landscape than the atlas that was only 2-3 years old!

If you keep these books, then your children can use them for history, too.

I have a Boy's Book from 18.... (can't remember the exact date- but late in the century) that talks about how wonderful it would be if we could fly!
The closest they had at the time was helium balloons.

much more interesting than books on history that have been written now because they're showing it from the perspective of those who lived through it.
(and that's called Primary Evidence when you're studying history)

Life laundry woman doesn't say you should get rid of all your books, she says you should be selective - you don't need to keep every trashy airport novel and out-of-date textbook - and those you keep should be on shelves not just piled up willy-nilly, cluttering up every room and collecting dust so you can't find a book when you need it and you can't find anything else either.

When I moved house I got rid of any books that weren't either a) useful or b) loved (a la William Morris). I still have lots and lots of books but they are all brilliant.

I love to be able to go and look something up or leap up in the middle of someone talking about something and say 'you must read this - you would love it/it will answer all your questions/it's very funny'.

God that's probably the wankiest thing I've ever admitted to on here

I have too many to count. Recently moved after selling my house and I'm so happy to have them everywhere once again. The selling agent took one look at them and declared they would all have to be put away out of sight or no-one would buy the house (she called books 'clutter', and yes, I wanted to punch her), so we compromised, but I am so glad to be 'cluttered' again.

I packed and moved them all myself and would do it again gladly.

I do get a little of what swanriver is saying, I did feel quite weighed down by my books at one point but that was due to:

-having lots of 'worthy' books on my shelves that I felt I ought to read including ones people had given me
-having lots of half-finished books on my shelves that I couldnt finish (directly related to the above I think) and
-keeping everything and ending up with lots of books I had read but didnt like for one reason or another.
-not having enough time to read at one point and all the stacked shelves making me feel guilty
-inadequate storage in a smaller house which made everything feel cluttered and dusty.

I solved the first three by getting rid of all those books and replacing them with ones that excited and interested me and DS grew out of his colic/medical problems which solved the fourth. DH built me new bookcases for the last one.

I only keep books I loved and want to read again, want DD/DS to have access to, lifechanging books, books I am unsure about (have reread some of these recently and got more out of them as I am at a different stage of life now) and books I havent read yet (by far the largest group atm!).

I have upwards of a thousand. I love my bookcases as they make the house feel warm. I also love it when I stay at a friend's house and she has a little bookcase in the guest bedroom that she changes the contents of freqently.

Bliss.

oh, and the thousands of book I have are part of my zombie plan. so I can heat up a can of beans for me and my family

But my books aren't dragging me down, swanriver - I'm perfectly happy to have them and they don't impede my life in any way. On the contrary - I'm with Firkytoodle and the 'stored knowledge' feeling. I get rid of lots of books; there's a healthy throughput of things I read and don't need to hold onto. I just choose to keep certain things and there are quite a lot of them!

Beware of getting rid of books. I accidentally sent a "special" book of DD1's to the school fete. The child who bought it bounced up to her and said look x was this yours it's got your name in it.
Mum's name was mud and in the end I bribed the child who'd bought it into swapping it for her choice of a new book.