Sunday, February 21, 2010

Musing Mondays (2/22)

Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about keeping books.

Do you keep all the books you ever buy? Just the ones you love? Just collectibles? What do you do with the ones you don’t want to keep?

**MUSING MONDAYS is hosted by Rebecca at Just One More Page...

I think is the pivotal question for a lot of book lovers. What am I going to do with my books? Where am I going to put them all?

I didn't really wonder too much about what I was going to do until I hit college, when I started traveling with all the books that meant the most to me. There never seemed to be enough room! I tried to be discerning with my pick, only allowing myself to take a few with me, but the definition of a few grew ever year!

I guess at this point in my life what I try to do is buy the important ones and every few years do a used book store purge of the rest. It's hard to see anything go, I'm one of those people who'll suddenly remember a part of a book I read years ago and want to read the whole thing over. But I can't keep them all, I don't physically have enough space. Plus, I'm almost positive my roommate would murder me in my sleep if I didn't have some semblance of control over my purchasing habits.

I've made a promise to myself that I'm going to visit the library more and maybe that will make a change; put a dent in the hundreds of books I'm sure I buy a year. But let's be serious - I know I'm going to turn into one of those old ladies that has to devote a room and almost every other piece of wall space in her house for bookshelves to try and contain her 'addiction'.

I'm not sure if I feel bad about that.