to give all my books to the charity shop?

[Boomba]

I'm fed up with all my clutter. I'm not really a hoarder, but very short on time and want to streamline so I can keep clean and tidy.

Ove got loads of books. In the sitting room 2 bookcases stacked 4 deep on each shelf.

I don't have time for reading anyway ant more. I've got a kindle

I feel strangely attached though. And a bit sad, that I don't have time for reading

Do you keep your books??

Even if I was fed up with my books I wouldn't give them away until dc have moved from home: my happiest teenage memories revolve around browsing through my parents' large and eclectic library. If my mother had decided which books were worthwhile for me I would never have developed the habit of reading widely which has been an enormous help in my career. And the books dd reads over and over again are not necessarily the books I thought I'd read over and over again. I look on my library as a facility I provide for my children as much as anything else.

I got rid of three bookcases full. I kept one shelf of absolute favourites. It was marvellously liberating. I think I read more now, but I pass the book on as soon as I finish it.

Keep books you know you will read again and ones you haven't read yet.
I repeatedly cull, or I wouldn't be able to get out of the house.
Some books I've re bought several times so I won't get rid of them again.

Give someone else the chance to enjoy your book once you have finished with it.
Pass it on.

I keep some simply because I want my children to be exposed to the idea of reading. If they see books they pick them up and explore them. My kindle is just another computer to them otherwise!

I run a cull when I tidy up and find there's not enough room for them all on the shelves.

Disclaimer... I did end up accidentally buying a new bookshelf in the auction the other day while waiting for a rather nice television table to come up. That's put the next cull off by another year or so! okay so the corridor to dd1's bedroom is now a foot narrower

Don't do it! I did this and then spent a fortune buying loads back! Put them in storage a d then when you get them out it's like meeting old friends!

I am a get rid of, nearly, every single book. I have only reread a few books in my life so I don't see any benifit of keeping books.

My late teens and older DC's and my DH all read a LOT, if we didnt take our books to the charity shop we wouldn't be able to move.

Most modern books go yellow if you kep them long .

My local Oxfam Books gets great prices for their second hand books. It good.

Do it! I really agree with the person who said she realised they were a passport to her intellectual levels. I think I've done that too a bit. Keep books to be seen to read, or ones that mean I'm cool.

You have inspired me op. I'm chucking the lot now :)

Oh god, I can't watch

Every time I say I'm gonna whittle my books down I dread it. I hate it. Last time I got rid of about 30 books and it was horrible. Gonna have to do it again soon as moving and I don't wanna!

I think part of your difficulty is that most people blur the distinction between the object of the book and the act of reading. We wish to be known as bookish, we take pride in having read so many books so do we display them on our shelves to show the world that we appreciate reading, or are we showing the world that we have lots of books?

I was very much a 'book on the shelf' person; as a librarian my books were very much bound with my identity. I love browsing the shelves when I visit other people's homes...it gives me a sense of who they are. But really that's only the first time I visit, after that I have to actually talk to them and find out that way. I then met the lady who held my current Librarian post before me. She is incredibly widely and well-read. Doesn't have a TV, worked in Libraries for 50 years before retiring to run the book section of her local charity shop... and she said to me "I don't need to keep books to prove that I've read them", and her absolute confidence in her own literary presence was utterly convincing.

Now, I keep the books I love, that bring value and joy to my ongoing life. Everything else, the candy floss, the latest big thing, the slightly wide-of-the-mark gift is read then passed on, either to a friend, charity shop or I'll add it to stock at work (especially useful with best sellers when we never have enough to go round)

And I've got a kindle (Bad Librarian Emoticon)

I did when I put my house on the market to de-clutter it but I donated mine to my local library :)

never ever ever ever will they get my books from me

Wot librarina said.

I love my books. I have far too many. I've read all the chapter books at least once, most I've read twice. I've also started to over-indulge and buy my daughter books (she is 10 months old, but loves books). My husband says if we ever win the lottery and get a dream house he'll have to buy me a library to store them all. In the mean time, I stack them wherever I can find a place to stack them.

I give away loads of books, I used to travel a lot and work abroad a lot and I got in the habit of passing them on. These days I mostly keep them for the same reason as Cory, I have 3 dds who read and I want them to be able to browse the bookshelves. But once they've left home I'll probably give lots away again.

You can get any classic back for free on Project Gutenberg, and I find it a lot easier to read the weighty small-print classics on a kindle than in book form. And you can get any other old favourite back for abou £2.80 on Amazon marketplac, so it's not hard to go back and re-read an old fabvourite if you do find you miss it.

I like to think of other people being able to read the books, even if I did go back in 20 or 30 yrs to re-read, they'll have sat on a shelf unused for decades.

I moved a couple of thousand from what used to be our study when we needed it for DD. They went as far as the attic.

I can't bring myself to get rid of them in case the kids want to read them some day.

Though they've had library tickets since they were 18 months and 2 weeks old, respectively; if the library had the books, the kids could read them all they liked and we wouldn't have to dust them. Hmm...

My degree was Eng Lit.I've kept all my old classics and a few good quality newer books I would read again.A book has to be really good if I'm ever going to read it again.

So my maxim is,will I read it again?I'm not into books as ornaments iykwim.

Then we get onto the subject of children's books

My house is groaning and I'm addicted to buying them.Bizarrely I struggle with getting rid of books for children and I'm more likely to read them again.

I have recently done a picture book cull but it was hard- dc are 9,9 and 8.

I don't like clutter. But I would never consider books clutter.

Give them away by all means, so that people like me can buy them

I'm about to do mine. We are decluttering and DH has agreed to get rid of at least 1500 (1/2) of his DVDs so as a quid pro quo I have agreed to cull my book collection :(

I had to cave in and cull some books when DH got me my kindle (in all fairness he did also cull his CD collection which was ridiculously large) and gave 7 waist high moving boxes of books to charity. DH doesn't know they were from the attic in the last house and not my shelves I kept a few hundred and the house has more floor space but it was looking a bit bare so I've started buying books again .

It's great having a DS who likes reading the same books because I can pretend buy them for him me.

Oh no, I can't get rid of books. I declutter everywhere else - kids' clothes, toys etc - but not my books.

Do you have children? Browsing well stocked shelves is something they won't be able to do in libraries or bookshops, as libraries are disappearing and both libraries and bookshops become more and more skewed to narrow ranges of the very marketable and fashionable.