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What we're reading

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

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Original poster

What do you do with books you've read?

59 replies

nkf · 19/08/2009 22:46

I keep most of mine and they are beginning to take over the house. The bookcases are two deep and we are still running out of space.

Shall I just try to toughen up and bin some? I always think I might want to re-read them.

OP posts:

angrypixie · 20/08/2009 07:13

Oh yes do babyocho. I think it's moved on a lot since then. However word of warning if you start going to meet ups then you will gain more books than you release.

Bookcrossing has not reduced the number of books in my house overall!

Kaystar · 20/08/2009 08:01

There is also bookmooch.com, where you register the books you want to give away, then post them off to people who request them. (I guess this is similar to readitswapit...?).

The only 'problem' that I have found is that you accumulate points for each book you send off and what can you use these points for? To ask for books from others so I find that I am getting almost as many back as I am sending off. But you can also use your points to donate to charity.

AmazingBouncingFerret · 20/08/2009 08:21

Keep the ones I'll read again and charity shop the rest. Bookcrossing sounds good but I can honestly say Ive never seen any random books lying around my hometown so im not sure how successful I would be!

Terpsichore · 20/08/2009 13:38

OP, welcome to the wonderful world of the double-stacked bookcase!

You do have to steel yourself a bit, I find (voice of experience here, with several thousand books crammed into the house somehow). There are many books I'll never get rid of because they are somehow part of me and my experiences...even if I haven't re-read them for years. But apart from the keepers, the transient ones are charity-shopped (which is where most came from anyway - I rarely buy new books).

Read It Swap It is great, and I'm really into it, but as someone else pointed out, you do, erm, get another book to replace the one you've got rid of!

And as for binning a book.... Never!!

TwoIfBySea · 20/08/2009 19:06

Books I've enjoyed I keep, books I don't I charity shop them. Although I can't bear to part with them sometimes I steel myself, my house isn't that big!

NorksNappiesAndNowtElse · 20/08/2009 19:18

Scattered round the house.

They get herded up every so often and put back on shelves/returned to whoever lent them to me.

pollywobbledoodle · 20/08/2009 20:39

put a shedload of books into the cellar then have a flood in there but effective!

FritesMenthe · 20/08/2009 20:47

There's a bookshop in Alnwick called BarterBooks. You take in a bag of books and they give you credit against choosing more books. We went in the holidays with a big bag of SIL's paperbacks and the children spent the credit on books for themselves.

Botbot · 26/08/2009 08:47

I have an arrangement with our assistant at work, who is young, underpaid and as addicted to books as I am. I give her any books that I don't want to keep (usually paperback novels, although I do keep ones that I've particularly loved). She reads them, then puts them on readitswapit to swap for more books (or puts them straight on there if she doesn't like the look of it!). As other posters have mentioned, I don't want a readitswapit account myself because it'll just generate even more books!

admylin · 26/08/2009 08:50

I keep most of my books if I can but with moving house a few times I have had to sort out quite a few times and only kept the ones I really loved. That still amounts to 10 removal boxes full which will hopefully be back up on the shelf when we get a new place soon.

Other wise I use dto sell them or give away to friends. I love having loads of books around the house though.

madusa · 26/08/2009 12:54

i too use readitswapit or give them away to friends (who then put it readitswapit!)

steamedtreaclesponge · 26/08/2009 12:57

I only get rid of books that I haven't enjoyed - the rest go to the charity shop. Mind you, I love having a house full of books and re-read things all the time!

I mainly try and use the library now rather than buying books - I can't believe how long it took me to realise that I could reserve books I wanted to read and get them sent over from other libraries! My Amazon wish list has halved now.

Mind you, get me near a jumble sale with a book stall and all my good intentions vanish away

littlerach · 26/08/2009 13:00

Read it Swap it is brilliant.

I don't think I get rid of books other than that

We are going near Alnwick in a few weeks so may have ot try that htough.

thumbwitch · 26/08/2009 13:00

Hello, my name is Thumbwitch and I am a Book Hoarder...

DH can't understand why I have so many. He doesn't do reading, and certainly not re-reading.

I have purged recently though - due to an overseas move - and sent all my "unlikely to ever bother to open that one again" books to charity shops, although I did try a second-hand bookseller first (there wasn't anything there he really wanted). Even with a purge, I still had about 40 small boxes of books that came with me...

cheesesarnie · 26/08/2009 13:03

im another hoarder.i tend to read the same book over and over again.
i must do something with them though-its getting silly!

cheesesarnie · 26/08/2009 13:04

thumbwitch-my dh doesn't 'do' reading either!i really cant understand it!

laneyjay · 26/08/2009 13:22

You could start a book swap at a local cafe or workplace. There are a couple where I live. You just drop off anything you have finished with and are free to take anything you fancy!

Shazzashazza · 30/07/2017 19:58

Hi
I and some other local mums swap books which got me thinking maybe we could have a way of maybe all putting book in somewhere and letting mums pick a book maybe charge something like a pound and if they wanted to once they have read it they could donate it back and then all money could go towards the local kids Christmas party or something of that kind. Has anyone else done anything similar?

WeatherMaker · 30/07/2017 20:05

This zombie thread is EIGHT years old

Shazzashazza · 30/07/2017 20:20

Sorry

WeatherMaker · 30/07/2017 20:37

Starting a new thread is always better than resurrecting a really old one like that

Shazzashazza · 30/07/2017 21:00

Sorry first day in here.

BarchesterFlowers · 30/07/2017 21:09

We have got two walls covered in books, 7ft high by 10ft wide x 2, we did give a load to charity shops last year but we still have 00s.

We do give DD's books to a friend when she has finished with them, she probably buys ten a month on average over the year, plus using the library.

I have got kindle and overdrive on my iPad and read from the library but rarely buy kindle books because I find a proper book a complete escape whereas I don't feel that about reading on my iPad.

BarchesterFlowers · 30/07/2017 21:09

Oops!

BarbaraofSeville · 31/07/2017 15:04

I delete them off my kindle, although I now see that the thread may predate kindles .

I like reading, and have no desire to fill the house with dusty clutter that is books

When I did read paper books I did bookcross one or two, but I never checked to see if they had been picked up by anyone.

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