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Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

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Original poster

Roisin: how many books is too many?

48 replies

SoftFroggie · 23/02/2005 20:55

Like you I love buying books for my kids (and myself). I usually get them from the Book People / Red House / School Link, so always good value. I aim for at least one a month, plus extras for - well almost any reason.

Is this too many? How many is too many - can I go for weekly books?

I was recently at a friend's house for the first time, and saw about 5 children's books, and no adult books - maybe we're mad! I left my DS (2) on his own at prschool for a short while recently, asked the leader how he got on, and she said "he loved sitting in the book corner, taking the books of the shelves and looking at them".

OP posts:

happymerryberries · 23/02/2005 20:57

Sorry to butt into you conversation. We have 8 book cases in our house and have hundreds of book. We are all addicts, makes the house look a total tip, but we enjoy it!

MunchedTooManyMarsLady · 23/02/2005 20:58

my sisters and friends think I live in a bookshop. You can't have too many books imo

philippat · 23/02/2005 21:01

as a kid I used to get a book a week as part of my pocket money (but regular library visit does just as well). You definitely can't read too many books.

foxinsocks · 23/02/2005 21:06

I have married into a family of journalists and believe me, it's not walls that hold up our house but bookcases and books! We even have 10 more boxes in the loft that we haven't unpacked because we have nowhere to put them.

I think you can have too many - I love books but dh refuses to give any away and I often wonder what the point is of having all the books in the loft if noone even misses them. His point is that one day he may need or want to read one of the books that's in the loft and he'd be disappointed if he couldn't! He also says he wouldn't be able to chose which ones to give away.

So I basically live in a library. I do find it sad though when I go to people's houses and they have no books at all.

Original poster

SoftFroggie · 23/02/2005 21:08

Thanks for butting in hmb. I only aimed this a roisin as I was thinking after a comment she made on another thread - all responses welcome.

OP posts:

stupidgirl · 23/02/2005 21:21

Ds has 4 book cases in his room alone. I love kids books. I love books generally, but kids books are just the best

SleepyJess · 23/02/2005 21:23

Oooh No such thing as too many books!!

SJ xx

stupidgirl · 23/02/2005 21:26

BTW, what's school link? I'm guessing it's one of those things where they sell books through school, right?

roisin · 23/02/2005 21:29

I measured the shelving in our house for children's books the other day - just to give you all a laugh. But I was too embarrassed to admit what it was!

AND we borrow loads of books from the library too.

BUT as a child I read loads of rubbish over and over again, because that's what was on the one shelf of books I had

roisin · 23/02/2005 21:30

When we moved here I made dh promise that we would have one room with no books in. ... It did start off like that, but even that room has 6' of books shelved in it now.

Bozza · 23/02/2005 21:41

Go on Roisin tell us. Actually do not have many adult books in the house because I get rid of most of them when read. I am a library fan but we do have lots of children's books. DD who is currently 9 months has four books out on her ticket ATM. Begin to think DS (4 last Sunday) is taking after his mummy though - the other day he was supposed to be getting ready for nursery and he was trying to take his pjs off while "reading" Green Light for Little Red Train. Needless to say he hadn't got far with his pjs.

roisin · 24/02/2005 13:07

OK, I'd forgotten what it was and couldn't find the tape measure last night.
c.27 feet of shelving of children's books

c.2/3 are standard pb/hb novels, organised alphabetically by author's surname of course ... obsessive, me?!
Anyone else feel the need to confess?

Kaz33 · 24/02/2005 13:19

I was also raised in a household full of books, my parents refuse to throw out any books which is fine until you come across there old university textbooks- which are out of date and factually incorrect. I as a child loved having my own library to browse at will.

We live in a two bed flat so are very limited to space so we have storage cupboards full of books - mmmm good use of space. I have a friend who is also book mad and when ever she comes round she makes a beeline for my bookshelves as she says my books are so interesting and unusual - ecletic.

So the answer is you can never have to many books but you do have to a range of books from total rubbish to the more intellectually demanding

Gwenick · 24/02/2005 13:29

My parents have recently downsized their collection of books to about 1500, they did (at the the 'peak' of it all) have around 4500 (all catalogued on the computer too .

We've got around 1000 books, 'scattered' throughout the house, about 300 in the kids rooms (as they're kids books), 500 or so of my music books and the rest are just general stuff

yoyo · 24/02/2005 13:31

This has made me smile as it causes so many arguments (of the wardrobe, drawers or book shelves variety)! There are books everywhere here - no space in bookcases so they are in little piles on the floor. DH has moved loads to his office, we have some in a storeroom, in his parents' house and mine, and in another house. When we moved we took bootloads to charity shops and second-hand shops and still the removals' men were aghast. My children also have the book habit - I long to own a house large enough to have a proper library. I would even catalogue the books (have never tried the alphabetical ordering system but it could be a little project for my girls...).

Gwenick · 24/02/2005 13:45

I know when parents moved house 2yrs ago, they had about 50 boxes of books to be moved! It could have been more than that but I'm not certain, I just know they sent some stuff to me later which still had the label on the box and it was 'books 50'

flamesparrow · 24/02/2005 18:15

You can never have too many books. We have hardly any storage in our house, so I've had to stop buying and start going to the library instead.

Yorkiegirl · 24/02/2005 18:17

Message withdrawn

Hausfrau · 24/02/2005 19:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

SoftFroggie · 24/02/2005 20:38

I grew up in a book house, and DH even more so - his parents have walls and walls of books. They are both librarians, so everything was ordered by the proper library classification (but by memory, no little stickers on the spine), and if he didn't know where to return something he'd just read he had to put it on the shelving trolley .

we have walls of books too, but also are pretty good at getting rid (bit of a row recently about keeping textbooks which are so old the 'send them to Africa' charities didn't want them). I'll keep buying them, then. Have to have some profligate habit, and it's a good one to justify.

OP posts:

WideWebWitch · 24/02/2005 20:42

I have hundreds and hundreds of books too. We really don't have room for them but I can't bear to get rid of too many, some were my dad's (he's dead) and some remind me of stuff and I think I never know, I might want to re-read them.

stupidgirl · 24/02/2005 20:47

In addition to all the books we have 3 library cards (one each!) and currently have about 20 books out of the library.

Marina · 25/02/2005 11:30

A thread to warm the cockles of a librarian's heart . Funnily enough, our house is jammed to the rafters with books - dh and I have all ours from childhood through university and beyond, both still buying, and ds and dd between them have approx 32ft of bookcase space. I cannot bear to count ours, probably about 60ft not including 10 packing cases in the attic. Our dream is to live somewhere where we can get all our books onto shelves...it'd have to be a big place though.
We don't classify or strict file-order our books though we both get enough of that at work!
I find houses with no books sad too. "Books do furnish a room"!

Gwenick · 25/02/2005 11:33

ooo I've just remembered my wonderufl vicar I had in Edinburgh. He lived in the church Flat (rather than house LOL) and it was one of those wonderful high ceiling ones. Anyhow, every room was packed to the rafters with books double stacked on the shelves.........and he also owned a smalled cottage in which the only stuff he had were bookcases and books!!!

roisin · 25/02/2005 13:22

Marina - I think this thread is actually one to warm the cockles of publishers' hearts, or at least line their wallets!

I'm relieved to hear that your children have even more books than mine.
(I'm not going to confess to non-children's books though ... that's far too scary!)

Yoyo - we had aghast removal men too

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