If you keep your books, where do you keep them? And, if you give them away, who do you give them to? Do you participate in Bookcrossing, BookMooch, PaperbackSwap, or the like? Do you give your old books to family & friends, or donate them? Are any of your books in storage due to not having enough space for them all? Or, are you one of the lucky ones who has their own “library”?
I’m someone who has their own “library” but that doesn’t mean I keep all my books.
The room I use as my hideaway has a wall with built-in bookshelves containing roughly 75 linear feet of shelf space. They are not packed tight but that is because within the last year I placed a standalone bookshelf that closely resembles the built-ins next to them, adding another 18 feet of shelf space. There’s also the smaller “to be read” bookshelf on my side of the bed, which has roughly 7.5 feet of shelf space.
Those shelves are basically for my books. My wife has a couple bookshelves elsewhere in the house, and each of the kids’ rooms has bookshelves of varying size.
Although none of my shelves are currently jam packed, the design of the room leaves little space for future expansion. As a result, I continue to occasionally “weed” through the shelves. In addition, just completed books may end up in a designated repository for books I’m not keeping rather than go on the shelves. The “discarded” books go to the used bookstore or are donated to the YMCA for sale at its local thrift store.
The rules have changed. True power is held by the person who possesses the largest bookshelf, not gun cabinet or wallet.
Anthony D’Angelo, The College Blue Book
Here in Mexico, English-language books can be scarcer than hens’ teeth. Even ordering from Amazon.com isn’t an easy proposition, because Amazon charges an arm and a leg for shipping to Mexico. Except in San Miguel de Allende, Lake Chapala and the D.F., there are no English-language lending libraries.
I’ve learned to be chary about lending books to others, because there is just too much tendency for those books never to find their way back to my own library. For that reason, book-lending circles are very, very tight. You just don’t loan a book to someone who doesn’t have something to lend in return, who returns the book in poor condition, or who doesn’t return books at all.
Practically every room in my house has a bookshelf, and I’m in desperate need of more bookshelves. I lust after a rolling library ladder.