How many books do you own?

[KidsHappen]

I have six sets of bookshelves that are 48" wide and have five shelves in each set. Each shelf is split in two for a total of 60 shelves that are 24" wide. Each shelf holds roughly 20 books so I have approximately 1200 books. Most are non-fiction and I regularly lend them out to my grandchildren as they need them in their home school journey. I currently live in a house that is bigger than I need so I have a library and a book lined sitting space in my master suite. Lately we have been thinking about when we downsize to a first floor master suite and I have begun to wonder where I am going to put all of my books in a newer smaller place. I could get rid of my fiction and replace them on Kindle but I really feel the need to keep my non-fiction which are mostly educational. has anyone had to downsize that many books before and if so how did you do it?

[HomeAgain]

14 minutes ago, KidsHappen said:

has anyone had to downsize that many books before and if so how did you do it?

I have a bookcase full of favorites in my living room: 3 shelves, about 15 on each shelf give or take.  They are well made editions of things that I have read often (other than Moby Dick - that was a one-and-done).

I have about 20 books in my bedroom that are paperbacks and "summer reads", things like In The Shadow Of Salem (Andover, MA), and The Poisonwood Bible.

And then I have my educational books in the basement.  It's one bookcase per subject, and 5 bins of history overflow.  I'm not counting those.

We had to downsize many years ago to move overseas.  And then we had our things destroyed.  And then we moved to an open floor plan with not nearly enough interior walls.  It really hammered home what was important.  Many books on my shelves are irreplaceable without a huge cost.  Personalized signings from Nate Philbrick.  Out of print educational books.  Last signings from Tommie DePaola and others.  Compilations of historical letters and notes.  These will always stay on my shelves.  Well loved books from my childhood.  The weird and the strange that passed for children's books years ago.

I get rid of nearly anything with a medal or award.  They'll be at my library or had for a song.  I only keep what I can't easily get back.

[Katy]

I have 14 big bookshelves and a bunch of smaller ones. And most of them are kids books. I’d guess somewhere between 10-15 thousand right now. I’ve downsized several times, but we just inherited a lot more from a retired teacher and so far I’ve only thrown out maybe 40 for either having too much damage or clearly not being a topic a kid would want to read today. 

I usually approach decluttering things like books by deciding how much space I’m going to give them and then starting with my favorites first. By the time you run out of space you know which ones you don’t love as much. It’s okay to get rid of the rest. 

[marbel]

When we moved into a smaller home, we inventoried our books as we packed them up into numbered boxes, but we did not get rid of many. We have far less room in this house for bookcases than we had in our old one, so many of the books stayed in boxes in our (dry) basement. Since they are inventoried, we can find them as needed/wanted, and sometimes books are rotated between boxes and shelves. Some I'm sure we have forgotten about so I do haul a box out every now and then to go through it. I'm sure there are a lot we could get rid of, but since they are boxed and not taking up living space, I don't worry too much about it. I have discarded books and then regretted it when I wanted it again and couldn't find it, so I'm careful with what I discard. We have a lot of kids' books that we will send off with our children one day.  

I've pretty much stopped buying fiction, with some exceptions, and mostly borrow from the library. I got rid of a lot of fiction, and all the homeschooling materials, but I saved all the good nonfiction. 

ETA: you asked how many books. We currently have about 2400. 

Edited Thursday at 01:48 PM by marbel

[Kassia]

I think I own two books - both have sentimental value.  DH is a collector and probably has 2000.  I'm an avid reader, but I borrow all of my books from the library.  There might be a few more that I'd like to keep for reference, but our house is so stuffed that I don't want to bring more things in.  

ETA - we want to move sometime in the near future and I don't know what we'll do about all of DH's books.

 

Edited Thursday at 12:25 PM by Kassia

[wisdomandtreasures]

After selling hundreds on eBay and donating hundreds to the thrift store,I still have 5 tall&wide bookcases packed, some on my nightstand, some in the hall closets (you think I'd waste that space on sheets and towels?!), and a lot more out in our garage-turned-schoolroom. "When I get a little money, I buy books and if there's any left over I buy food" is my motto. 😉

[prairiewindmomma]

We used to have about 12 bookcases worth of books. We have downsized in a big way twice, in 2014 and in 2017. I do regular small tidyings of our shelves every year or so as Youngest outgrows some books. We’re down to three bookcases at this point. 
 

Your post sounds as though you arent ready to part with books. Part one of being able to downsize joyfully is being willing to adapt lifestyles. 
 

Perhaps a thought exercise would help? Imagine two bookcases in your new apartment. Which books would you take if that was all the space you had?

[forty-two]

I consider books (along with electronics and DVDs) to be my main decorating theme, lol.  We have bookshelves along any and every available wall.  There are three full size shelves plus one smaller shelf in the dining room (hs books), six full size shelves in the living room (half hs, half dh and my's fiction), two full size and one smaller in the hall (girls' shelves and misc kid lit), a full size in ds' room for his books, and four full and one smaller in our bedroom for my books.  That's sixteen full and three smaller.  It was over 2,000 when I last counted several years back - maybe 2500 now?

ETA: don't know what you are planning to downsize to, but our house isn't particularly large: 1600 sq ft, with a semi-open floor plan and lots of windows, plus a garage, but no basement.

Edited Thursday at 01:38 PM by forty-two

[stephanier.1765]

Years ago, I downsized our book collection and only saved my favorites, which now cover 4 shelves in a bookcase. The only reason I kept the favorites is so I can lend them to people I think will enjoy them. I have to regularly fight the urge to buy hard copies of books I read on my Kindle. For some reason, when I really love a book, I feel the need to own it. 

Unfortunately when I downsized, I donated a series that my son loved. I knew he had liked the books but it never occurred to me that he would want to hold on to them. Even now as an adult, he still talks about those books so now I'm trying to find them so I can give him a set for Christmas.

[SKL]

I used to have thousands.  They were mostly in the basement.  They were down there too long, so I ended up having to throw most of them away.  Not recommended.  I should have donated them or just not bought them in the first place.

Now, I am sure we have some hundreds of books between all of us, but I am not counting them.  😛  Each persons' books are in their bedroom.  We could definitely stand to get rid of more.

How:

• Recycle (discard) anything that is too outdated to be of use to anyone other than a mad historian.  Example:  I'm pretty sure someone here has old "how to use this software" books from 30+ years ago.  There's no point "donating" it since that would just leave it to someone else to throw away.
• Sort and donate anything that we really don't need to keep for posterity, sentiment, etc.
  • First, to my nieces, ages 13 & 14, but only if they're likely to use them.  (They are free to donate ones they don't want, but again, that just means putting the work on someone else.)
  • Second, to places that will accept / use educational items.  Example:  private schools that have rummage sales; nonprofits that serve needy children; libraries that have book sales; cultural organizations that can redistribute foreign-language books.  This requires research & contacting the places.
  • Last, to one or more thrift store(s) that accept all sorts of things for sale or redistribution.
• Choose a common space for the books you decide to keep.  My folks have a bookcase in their entryway for books anyone might want to borrow.  If you have a 2-story home and plan to move your bedroom to the 1st floor, maybe a 2nd floor room would be best for your "lending library."

Edited Thursday at 02:14 PM by SKL

[Arcadia]

One short bookcase worth (pic same model as mine). I have always lived in small homes. My current home is 865sqft. Previous one was 695 sqft.. My childhood home is about 635 sqft. We (including my parents) have always used the library. 

[Kareni]

2 hours ago, stephanier.1765 said:

 Unfortunately when I downsized, I donated a series that my son loved. I knew he had liked the books but it never occurred to me that he would want to hold on to them. Even now as an adult, he still talks about those books so now I'm trying to find them so I can give him a set for Christmas.

You've made me curious as to the identity of the series!

I'm guessing we have perhaps two thousand paper books in the house (living room, our bedroom, my daughter's old room, and my husband's office). I have many thousands of books on my Kindle.

I would not relish the task of downsizing our collection!

Regards,

Kareni

[elegantlion]

We also decorate with books. SO probably has more books than me. Most of ours are non-fiction or academic books, things you can't just pick up at the library. I would venture together we have about 2-3k. We currently live in a 750sf apartment. Some of our books are stored at my moms in what used to be my bedroom. We use bankers boxes to store a lot of them. They're separated by category and even I'm surprised how much we utilize a lot of them. 

When we buy a house, at least one room will be just a library room with a work table and a few comfy chairs. 

[wintermom]

Is this a trick question to lure us into wanting more? 😉  If I knew how many book I have, I'd definitely want more. That number would seem too low. 

[Meriwether]

About 5 thousand.

[Clarita]

Umm I have no idea. I have books on bookshelves, books on tabletops, books on the floor, books on beds ... It was only last week that I said no more books in the bathroom.

My more organized and neat friends just make extensive use of the library. Depending on how your local library system works you may even be able to donate your books to them and they may put them on their shelves. (It depends on if they are a more independent library or if they are part of a big system of libraries.) 

[Meriwether]

5 hours ago, Katy said:

I have 14 big bookshelves and a bunch of smaller ones. And most of them are kids books. I’d guess somewhere between 10-15 thousand right now. I’ve downsized several times, but we just inherited a lot more from a retired teacher and so far I’ve only thrown out maybe 40 for either having too much damage or clearly not being a topic a kid would want to read today. 

I usually approach decluttering things like books by deciding how much space I’m going to give them and then starting with my favorites first. By the time you run out of space you know which ones you don’t love as much. It’s okay to get rid of the rest. 

I can't even imagine 10-15 thousand. I have around 5,000. The main shelving units have about 296 linear feet of shelving (homemade, so some of them have 9 shelves totaling 36 linear ft). I have books on top of a third of the shelving units, at least 12 linear feet. Not included in the 296 linear feet are the shelving units in the bedrooms. Two decent sized shelves in my bedroom. Each of the five kids have at least a half shelf in their rooms, one has the equivalent of two large bookshelves. And I still have books in boxes and stacked up in the basement because we didn't move all of our shelving. 

[Chris in VA]

We had a library in our old home, and dh had an office. He estimates we have 10,000 books. 

So different here, but we have managed to accumulate about 30! More on kindle, now. 

 

Edited Thursday at 06:20 PM by Chris in VA

[Hannah]

We've reduced to around 3000, mostly non-fiction, and I have bins of picture books, readers, etc for each level.  Our local library is completely underfunded and last year got only US$1000 to purchase new books, so for years it was my hobby to find good 2nd hand books from the recommended reading lists such as FIAR, Sonlight, Welltraindmind, etc.   Does anyone remember BookMooch?  There was a stage when one earned 2 points for every international book sent, but you paid only 1 point.  I was a regular sender and receiver.

When we bought our house from plan nearly 25 years ago, we moved a short hallway wall back to accommodate bookshelves.  

 

 

[KidsHappen]

We have the floorplans of the house we want to buy and the main problem is that it is mostly open floorplan so not a lot of wall space for books shelves. I am thinking I can probably fit 5 of the double wide shelves in the house. That will hold my math, science and history with a little room left for language and art. If I get my fiction on Kindle and try to refrain from buying many more books, I think it will work out ok.

[TechWife]

Library Thing has 2,466. We’re a bit behind entering newer books, so probably closer to 2,500 now. 
 

ETA: This doesn’t include our ebooks. For the life of me, I can’t get them imported into Library Thing & I’m not going to manually enter them. Between the two of us, we have 2000 books on kindle for a total of about 54,500. 

Edited Thursday at 10:35 PM by TechWife

[SHP]

Not a lot. I downsized and use the library.

[Ausmumof3]

More than we have space for 😞

I need to cull but it’s such a huge and emotional job. 
 

I also have a lot that I borrowed for my sis for homeschooling that need to go back to her soon for grandkids, but I’m hesitant to open the conversation. Her grandkids are under two and I’m not sure if the parents will homeschool. They were both homeschooled themselves and I think it would definitely be their preference but finances now mean mom has to work as well. 
 

I’m also in limbo myself for next year. I really want to homeschool youngest through to the end of y9. But next year no one will be home on the days I work and he’s a year off being able to stay home alone.  DH could choose to be home but he’s never been 100pc onboard with homeschooling and I think he really just wants him to go to school.

 

I always thought eventually when he saw how it turned out he’d be more supportive. He loves the way the kids have turned out but still is kind of just very conventionally minded. 
 

So I guess I’m grieving the homeschooling stage of my life finishing before I expected or was ready for it. I never expected to have to go back to work before the kids were grown but that’s life. Only I don’t have a clear vision of what the rest of life looks like.

 

So I have a book problem that is related to hoarding and the rest of life indecision. There is some stuff I could probably let go of pretty easily though if I could just get a chunk of time to deal with it. 
 

I rarely read physical books now and mostly use audible or e books.  I don’t like how hard it is to share them with others though. 

Edited Thursday at 10:53 PM by Ausmumof3

[ScoutTN]

Not as many as I would like to, but more than I have time to read (and reread!).

[Kalmia]

The estimate I come up with by multiplying the average number per shelf by number of shelves plus an approximation of how many books per small moving box in my barn adds up to about 1700. Those are just my books, not my husband's or adult children's. But I have the most of any of us. The majority of mine are specialized nature books (field guides, natural histories, ecology, habitats, etc.) and a the next most common are the homeschooling books I now use for tutoring, with a bunch of literature, fiction, and nonfiction rounding out the collection. I never feel I have too many books. There are plenty of bookshelves and I am made very happy gazing upon them, whereas I dislike looking upon home "decor." Books are useful AND beautiful. 

Edited Friday at 12:31 AM by Kalmia

[Ottakee]

Currently in my house I have 2 books….my study Bible and a bilingual Bible.

I do used about 15-20 books in the garage waiting to get moved back into the house (we just painted and replaced all of the main floor flooring).  Then I have about 10 kids books in a box…..so maybe I own 30 books.

That said, I am a huge reader and usually have an audiobook playing and have tons of books on my kindle plus I use Libby a great deal for kindle books.   So, even though I didn't keep a lot of books, I do read a great deal.

oh, I think I do own 5-6 cookbooks too.

[knitgrl]

Dear Lord. I have no clue. Several shelves of cookbooks in the kitchen. Built in shelves chock full in the dining room and living room. Shelves in my bedroom. Stacks on the floor next to my bed. Boxes in the attic and barn. I'm almost to the point of admitting it's too many, but not quite.

[rebcoola]

Only about 500 physical books.  A couple thousand more kindle books I own. Even though I am mostly a kindle unlimited reader.  Downsizing idk I typically only buy adult physical books if its something special.

[Carrie12345]

I have no idea how many I have.

Before moving, I did a decent purge. It helped to know some younger kids to pass kid books onto. It also helped to have a used bookstore to take some, even though I won’t use all my credits. For most topics, I looked at everything I had and kept the most comprehensive titles, letting the lighter stuff go. And now I’m preparing for a homeschool sale, so I can think in terms of items getting more use elsewhere than they are here.

I *love* collecting books, but I also love organization and pushing myself to be realistic!

[Melanie32]

I have several hundred. I regularly go through and try to cull any books that I don’t think any of us will read again. I keep the hard bound classics always. I have our favorite homeschooling books saved for grandchildren. I have no idea if they will ever read them but I can’t bear to part with them and know that they are hard to find so I hold on to them still. 

[KungFuPanda]

Ten Billy-sized bookcases? One is the board game bookcase. This is after we did a serious purge when my kids entered high school and II got rid of things we’d never read again. I didn’t want to keep books just to HAVE books because it was getting out of hand. 
 

Just this week I pulled out the wooden puzzles and the board book collection so I could clean them up for dgs. That was fun. I also cleaned up some Little People sets and Thomas trains. 

[stephanier.1765]

23 hours ago, Kareni said:

You've made me curious as to the identity of the series!

Ranger's Apprentice. After posting here, I checked Amazon and it doesn't look too pricey at all to get the entire series. He's going to be super excited to get those. There's another series that we both loved from the same age level but, for the life of me, I can't recall the name of it. I would love to find that one too but I can't even recall enough descriptors to even do a Google search for the title. 

[Kareni]

Thanks for indulging my curiosity, @stephanier.1765. My daughter was also a big fan of the Ranger's Apprentice books!

I hope you'll be able to figure out the other series.

Regards,

Kareni

[Kareni]

@stephanier.1765, here are some books you mentioned in 2010 that were favorites of your son; perhaps the mystery series is included: "Pendragon, The Hunger Games, Ranger's Apprentice, Percy Jackson, Bartimeaus"

Regards,

Kareni

[73349]

Me, personally? Or how many books are in my house (admittedly, I brought most of them in, but many were for DS)?

Probably it's under 500 in all. We're quite close to a library and use it every week. Some room in our (1600 sf) home that could be used for bookcases is instead used for instruments (keyboard, drum set); a sewing machine; and a television.

[Faith-manor]

Instantly suspicious and defensive, Faith stares with fierce, squinty eyes at the inquisitor and says, "I'm not talking without my lawyer!"

😁

[Eos]

1 hour ago, Kareni said:

@stephanier.1765, here are some books you mentioned in 2010 that were favorites of your son; perhaps the mystery series is included: "Pendragon, The Hunger Games, Ranger's Apprentice, Percy Jackson, Bartimeaus"

Regards,

Kareni

Way to search the archive! 

[stephanier.1765]

3 hours ago, Kareni said:

@stephanier.1765, here are some books you mentioned in 2010 that were favorites of your son; perhaps the mystery series is included: "Pendragon, The Hunger Games, Ranger's Apprentice, Percy Jackson, Bartimeaus"

Regards,

Kareni

You are a genius! Certified genius! I never would have figured out Pendragon. Not in a million years. Oh yay, I'm so excited! Thank you so much!

I had forgotten about Bartimeaus too but it was definitely one of my favorite young adult series we read. I think I might just read that one again.

[Hilltopmom]

Down to 1 bookshelf at home.

I’m not counting the wall of my personal picture books I have in my classroom at school. 

I try to read a few books a week but from the library.

[Kareni]

I'm glad to have helped, @stephanier.1765! Enjoy revisiting those old favorites.

Regards,

Kareni