# When you have too many books...



## TomMazanec (Oct 28, 2020)

What do you do? I mentioned selling two truckloads of books for $200 elsewhere on the forum.
Some of the books I kept from that sale were S. Andrew Swann's Moreau novels. But I recently purchased them for my Kindle (great space saver) and donated the dead tree versions to a little "free library" here in Twinsburg by the fitness center. There is a case you can drop books off or take from for free. I figured this would introduce someone else to Nohar Rajasthan.
What do you do when you run out of space?


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## Foxbat (Oct 28, 2020)

TomMazanec said:


> What do you do when you run out of space?


I also bought a kindle. I still buy the odd book now and again but with little space left, most of my purchases are for the kindle now. Also, we have a recycling centre where I often donate books I’ve decided I’ll never read again. The centre sells them on for a token price with the proceeds going to local charities. This also helps me create a little new space for any print copies I want to buy.


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## mosaix (Oct 28, 2020)

Before the pandemic and, I hope, when the pandemic is over the Friends of Bridgnorth Library run a quarterly second-hand book sale - proceeds to the library. I donate my unwanted books to the sale.


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## tinkerdan (Oct 28, 2020)

Pre-pandemic we would go to the local used book store and for every ten books we dropped off we'd get enough credit for three or four books; so that would whittle things a bit.

There is also the library; where they take in book donations and then twice a year have a big sale on those and the library discards--they sell for usually a couple of dollars for a bag full of books. So If you take in a sack of books and then discover when the sale is, you end up coming in and getting two or three sacks of books and are deeper in book stacks.


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## Don (Oct 28, 2020)

Besides ye olde library book sales, I also donate my unwanted books to my local _Rescued Treasures_ thrift store_, _which is operated as a rescue mission ministry. The store's proceeds provide food and shelter to the homeless and needy. Prisons also need books.


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## Vince W (Oct 28, 2020)

I hate, _hate_ parting with books. I just moved recently and parted with some I absolutely knew I would never read again and it was still a struggle to let them go. I have a kindle, but I don't use it much. I try, but I can't seem to concentrate as well with it.

P.S. I'm also a fan of Swann's Moreau series.


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## Overread (Oct 29, 2020)

I'm another who resolved the issue by buying a Kindle. For me the Kindle is an ideal reader for novels and you can buy loads and they never take up shelf space. Though the more I get the more I wish Amazon would give us more powerful library and organising tools (even just being able to put a collection inside another collection would be a boon). 

It has its shortcomings, but also its up sides and one big one is when you've got limited space you can keep buying and reading. 

I find it leaves me more free to consider buying books in hardback and special editions and basically books that I want to own for their physical properties more so than just the story within them.


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## Foxbat (Oct 29, 2020)

No!!!!!!
I knew talking about my kindle was tempting fate. Failed to boot today multiple times and I had to go for a factory reset. This wipes everything you’ve downloaded and now I’m starting again with an empty device to fill. It’s not so much redownloading all the books that’s the pain,  it’s everything else. Being a kindle fire HD, I’ve found it the perfect place to keep instruction manuals in PDF form. Now I’ve got to get all those back. At least a book doesn’t fail to open (unless somebody has glued it shut)


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## Jo Zebedee (Oct 29, 2020)

I opened a bookstore, basically - we literally opened with our own books (we had been hoarding with this in mind) and some stock we bought in. I didn’t even have a wholesale account (although I was in the process of getting one).

Now we do take 2nd hand books, mostly from people who want somewhere to drop them since the charity shops often get swamped, but we also take some off the charity shops who keep an eye out for what we are looking for (they get paid for them), and we buy on eBay etc.

incidentally @Overread - a lot of our sales are for the special, nice editions. People seem to enjoy treating themselves with nice books and want cheap as chips for the quick read through.


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## Boneman (Oct 29, 2020)

Gimme a book every time. Kindle is convenient, but just not the same... On the rare occasions I sort through my library and part with some of them, they do go to charity shops. I even bought one back once...


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## Jo Zebedee (Oct 29, 2020)

Boneman said:


> Gimme a book every time. Kindle is convenient, but just not the same... On the rare occasions I sort through my library and part with some of them, they do go to charity shops. I even bought one back once...


I’ve done that more than once!


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## Vince W (Oct 29, 2020)

I moved this month and my new commute has be driving past a second hand bookshop and three(!) charity shops. It's a wonder I make it home each night.


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## Don (Oct 30, 2020)

Jo Zebedee said:


> I’ve done that more than once!


Me too.


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## TomMazanec (Nov 3, 2020)

Charity shops...
I used to go to garage sales just to look for SF books. That's where I got my first Brin Uplift book.
Great thing about Kindle is you can search for words...every book comes with a concordance.
Vince W...not only am I a Moreau fan. but I am a fellow Cleveland Area-er with S. Andrew Swann.


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## Harpo (Nov 3, 2020)

When I moved from London to the Outer Hebrides six years ago I had to drastically downsize quickly. I brought just three books with me.
Now I have three bookshelves, and I need a fourth. Either that or start donating them back to the charity shops whence they came.


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## Bick (Nov 24, 2020)

What to do? Extend the house is a good option. Failing that, and cheaper, you could embrace living like this:






Or install these rolling shelves (Bob Silverberg has these for his SF books and magazines at his house):





But keep the books!


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## Teresa Edgerton (Nov 24, 2020)

I don't believe there is any such thing as "too many books."  At our house, when we start to be overwhelmed, we view it as a matter of "too few bookshelves."  It is amazing some of the places you can find to build a bookshelf if you think creatively enough.

Although since my vision and John's got so bad that we do better reading books on our Kindles, that issue has come up less and less often.


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## Bick (Nov 24, 2020)

Teresa Edgerton said:


> I don't believe there is any such thing as "too many books."  At our house, when we start to be overwhelmed, we view it as a matter of "too few bookshelves."


This.
File "_too many books_" alongside "_military intelligence_" and "_adult male_".


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## Overread (Nov 24, 2020)

Remember - the more books you have the more insulation you have for the walls and building!


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## Ambrose (Nov 24, 2020)

True.  So long as you know the load limit of your floors!


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## AE35Unit (Nov 24, 2020)

Its not too many books. Its not enough shelves...


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## Vladd67 (Nov 24, 2020)




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## AE35Unit (Nov 24, 2020)

Vladd67 said:


> View attachment 72745


In my case its tiredness. I can't read without wanting to fall asleep


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## AlekseiVashchenko (Dec 12, 2020)

My books are load bearing, so each pile just makes me feel more secure.


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## Vince W (Dec 12, 2020)

AlekseiVashchenko said:


> My books are load bearing, so each pile just makes me feel more secure.


Well said! And welcome to the Chrons.


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## chongjasmine (May 7, 2022)

My mother actually forced me to donate one book for each new book I bought. Space constraint, she said.
So, I am kind of torn between buying new books or keeping the old ones.


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## AE35Unit (May 7, 2022)

chongjasmine said:


> My mother actually forced me to donate one book for each new book I bought. Space constraint, she said.
> So, I am kind of torn between buying new books or keeping the old ones.


I'm in a similar situation. My partner says I can have a new musical instrument only if I sell or donate an existing one in my collection.


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## Extollager (May 7, 2022)

Foxbat said:


> No!!!!!!
> I knew talking about my kindle was tempting fate. Failed to boot today multiple times and I had to go for a factory reset. This wipes everything you’ve downloaded and now I’m starting again with an empty device to fill. It’s not so much redownloading all the books that’s the pain,  it’s everything else. Being a kindle fire HD, I’ve found it the perfect place to keep instruction manuals in PDF form. Now I’ve got to get all those back. At least a book doesn’t fail to open (unless somebody has glued it shut)


Thanks for the implied warning -- much appreciated.


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## Extollager (May 7, 2022)

Space problems?  Well, one possibility is that one has too much non-book stuff, such as furniture that is never used except to pile books on, etc. 

Some books are worthy only of being recycled as waste paper, I'm sure.  I won't mention names (probably wouldn't remember in detail, anyway) but I have discarded a few over the years for recycling.  Other people have posted good suggestions.  I didn't see another possible place for books one doesn't want to keep -- those free book cupboards you see in some neighborhoods.


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## AE35Unit (May 7, 2022)

Put em on Bookmooch!


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## J-Sun (May 7, 2022)

TomMazanec said:


> What do you do when you run out of space?





Teresa Edgerton said:


> At our house, when we start to be overwhelmed, we view it as a matter of "too few bookshelves." It is amazing some of the places you can find to build a bookshelf if you think creatively enough.


Exactly. Although I have to confess my creativity is being taxed to its limit at this point. But, to paraphrase Johnson, "when a man knows his book is about to be sacrificed in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."


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