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

Librarything says 1592 but I have been very lax in updating this last year so I estimate 500+ more.

DH built me some bookcases in alcoves for mother's day which has made all the difference, spacewise, in the house.

I used to have 3000+ and turned an entire bedroom into a library. However we have moved twice since then, once internationally and both times we have had to move them ourselves. There is no greater encouragement to pass a book on than the knowledge that you have to pack and move it-and unpack the other end. I learnt then that not all books have the same value to me and have been able to be a bit more ruthless.

I love being around books- its all the stored knowledge and potential that I like and I have spent so many happy hours with my head in a book. Yesterday DH, DD, DS and I all curled up on the sofa together, all reading our own books in peace and quiet which was lovely.

But I think the Life Laundry woman is right. If the books are dragging you down, and creating dust and disharmony, and just stopping you reading NEW books, they have become just possessions like all possessions which you don't NEED.
How can you need that many books. I know I don't. I can only read say 8 books simultaneously. There is a library down the road, an number of secondhand bookshops to buy new reads from...
In the end they are not sacred objects, they are STUFF like anything else.

Dh's uncle gave us an enormous box of Lawrence Durrell books. They've been sitting on the landing for ten years. Unread. They are going to the charity shop tomorrow. And that's final.

oh, now I know I don't have enough books :(

when I went off to uni, my dad packed my books into bread crates.
I had 3 full bread crates of books.

When I next moved house, I had a few more boxes than that!

at the Life Laundry woman.
I would have looked at her like this then punched her.

Dh and I combined our (substantial) libraries when we got together. When we moved house we had 99 boxes of books and since then we (actually I - I'm the real bookworm ) have acquired loads more. I started cataloguing them on one of those online sites and I'm well past 2000 now, although tbh if you'd asked me to take a guess, I'd have said we had far more, so it's interesting how your perceptions work.

There are 11 sets of bookshelves of various sizes in the house - they're in every room except the bathroom. One set of shelves covers a whole wall of the room, and most of the shelves are double- or triple-stacked. I love my books with a passion and not having them around would make me feel very anxious and just, well, wrong.

I'll never forget watching a TV show called 'Life Laundry' years ago and the bossy American woman who was the 'de-clutterer' said to one woman 'who needs to keep books? You've read them - just get rid of them. Nobody needs to keep books.'

I wanted to punch her.

more than 500... i don't know, but there's 5 big bookcases full, plus kitchen books etc.

i can't bear selling them or giving them away, even if i don't like the book.

Indeed nickel...but what can you expect from guys you pick up meet at the launderette ? He was no Nick Kamen

Nickelbabe - But where are they going to go??? Maybe I can get a Latin grammar for my kindle. Off to look now.

swanriver I was a bookseller too....there may be a connection!

I don't get rid because although I hadn't heard about the Tory Party link I guess I like to identify myself as not a Tory intelligent more than I mind about the clutter.

Hundreds-certainly far too many to be bothered to count.

darlene - Billy Bookcases are from Ikea.

i don't know (i've forgotten, too)

let's just say it's Encyclopædia Britannica as the collection and it doesn't have a plural.

still, one good thing is that it has helped you to see it's a bad idea to get rid of books.

Doesn't the adjective have to agree with the noun? (Feels depressed at having forgotten so much...I have a classics degree, and a first to boot, but it was a long, long time ago.) (Wanders off, revising book cull policy...)

What's a billy bookcase? Is there a book I can buy that can tell me?

I have a serious book buying addiction. I gave away a few boxes a few years ago and I've never forgiven myself. I spend c. £30 pcm on second hand books. I cant stop myself. Most of what I buy is out of print and I know if I dont get it then and there I may never have an opportunity again. If I run out of cash I'll use the credit card, even though I know I shouldn't. Then when I get home I have to hide my purchases!

There are floor to celing shelves in the living room and kids' bedroom, 5 x 2x4 bookcases between the bedrooms, a few in the kitchen, 50 beside the bed, a box in the cupboard and 6 under window shelves. I woudn't have it any other way!

I feel sad when I go into 'empty of books' houses. They just dont feel like homes.

no, the plural only goes on the Noun - the Britannica part is the adjective, so it doesn't take the plural.

Nickelbabe - wouldn't it then have to be Encyclopaediae Britannicae? (Though my Latin Grammar is one of the many books that got ditched in a cull!)

I used to have 1000s and 1000s, but am gradually culling. Our house is perversely unsuited to bookshelves (should have thought of that when I bought it - relatively few walls without radiators/windows/doors/fireplaces). We have five billy bookcases full and I am trying to stick to that (with a few extras I can't bear to lose for sentimental family reasons hidden behind the front row). So it's one in, one out, and trying only to buy for my kindle now. I feel odd without more, though - books having been a defining part of my self-image - and am thinking of having a sign made to hang on the remaining shelves that says 'the rest of my books are on my kindle'...

Lilly -
"oh, you must be so intelligent because you learnt to read!"
what did he do at school then??

lambethlil I feel like you. There are now Too MENY. I'm hanging on till Ds1 does GSCE English or A-level, and then I shall give them all to HIM to TAKE OUT of this house. It just feels like a "collection" that all hangs together, that is the problem...
I think if I threw anything away it would be more modern stuff, Paul Auster, Ian McEwan, Atwood, I don't think I will ever read it again, and if I do..I can get it from a library.
May I ask why you haven't got rid of any if you feel so strongly? In my case, Dh has so many trashy novels that he won't get rid of, that I feel like it's not fair that I should be the one to throw all my favourites away. It's a block that we can't overcome. He is a bookseller. I was a bookseller.

I leap at the chance to lend books, and I absolutely love it when no-one returns things.

My non-fiction books for some reason, I read over and over again, especially the gardening books, I don't think I could ever part with most of them.

I once decided not to follow up on a date because the guy kept going on about how intelligent I must be because I read books..... I'm OK, but I'm not that intelligent...

I once decided not to follow up on a date with a bloke because he boasted to me in an email that he had "an entire bookshelf of books". Like, he mentioned this several times.

I have...I don't know. A couple of thousand, maybe? My husband is a hobby carpenter and so builds me bookshelves when I run out, and each bookshelf is a different size to suit the space (dining room, living room, lobby, study, DD's room - some of these have multiple bookshelves) making it almost impossible to tell. He's not much of a reader, so possibly one or two shelves are taken up with his reference books only.

I cull regularly - if I've not read something in the past five years and spotting it on the shelf doesn't make me want to, it goes. Most of my books I re-read multiple times. I do borrow stacks from libraries, as well, but if I can't get something quickly enough I'll buy it, and I'm addicted to secondhand book shops, and it adds up.

ziptoes, wait until they're older and what books they actually like if any. If there are conflicts over books, hopefully you will still be able to pick up secondhand copies through abebooks or something, or maybe all our childhood favourites will be digitised for ereaders? My Noel Streatfeild collection has got split between me and my much younger sister. At least you have the possibility that one of your children may like all your books. While I'm not keen on sex stereotyping, there are some I can't see my boys wanting, and I'll have to offer those to nieces or if there are any, grandchildren. Actually, I'm not giving my own copies away to anyone in the next generation who doesn't live in my house! My descendants will probably just have to bin them all when I die.

ooooh, I would love all the books to take over the house!!

my ex had very few books, he prided himself on the fact that he only owned about 12 books
So i emptied the house of books when I left.

I was delighted when I found that DH (obviously he wasn't DH at that point!) had quite a lot of books.
we've amalgamated most of our books now, and sometimes I can't remember if a certain book is his or mine (it's usually mine, though)
He didn't have many out on display, though - the house has lots of built-in cupboards, so he just used to put books in those (prob so he wouldn't have to think about buying bookcases).
Now most of them are on bookcases.

Interesting story about Tory party canvassers though I do know some Tories who read books!

Did anyone else read Lucy Mangan's last article in the Guardian before her baby was born - she seemed more concerned with her bookbag than a hospital bag. I took 3 in and had to beg for a lamp because I was being induced the next morning with my first baby and needed to be sure I could read if I couldn't sleep because I was so anxious.

Nerfherder, thank you for your lovely comment - please send me a tweet and let me know who you are on Twitter as I don't recognise your name and don't know if I'm following you back. My tweets aren't really very interesting at all, except when I get into pointless arguments with right wing idiots, and that's probably not that interesting either.

If you're interested in reviewing books, one of the websites I review for is always on the lookout for people to do that.

About 10,000. Half downstairs, some boxed. Even shelves in the loo.

I hate it. I hate the mess, the fact that I can never make a room tidy and I don't see the point of having books once read 'on display'. I'm hoping toinvest in some serious built-in shelving.

I like having reference books to hand, and I love being able to show the DCs things we've seen or been talking in a book, but 95% of the books in the house could disappear and I'd be delighted.