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I prefer to buy books, unless they are available for free on-line. Audio books put me to sleep, unless they involve thinking (i.e., no audio novels for me). Do I own lots of books? It depends on what you mean by "a lot". I'd say I have quite a few, not to mention my good old personal library back in Egypt, which I really miss and wish to bring here gradually.

I used to buy, but the bookshelves are now overflowing into the garage. So these days I prefer to use the library. Unless I absolutely must own the book.

When we moved here we had 11,000lbs of crap.
Total furniture: One queen sized bed, one china hutch, two sewing machines in cabinets, one low bookcase and a desk.
For those keeping track, that's maybe 2000lbs max. Anybody want to take a shot at guessing what the vast majority of the remaining 5.5tons of stuff was??

So, yes, we buy book and keep them all. At last count we were running somewhere around 3,000 volumes, not counting maybe another 1,000 reference books we had not cataloged. Dead trees are addictive but I can quit any time I want.

I buy or go to the library Mrs. 6 and I have a fair number of books. We have a library room with several 6 foot bookshelves, and three or four 3 footers, all of which are overflowing. I recently bought a 5 foot bookcase for the living room, which was filled to overflowing almost instantly. (To be fair, one shelf is full of DVDs). There are a number of boxes of books in the garage and basement full of books.
I don't consider that a lot of books, though. I once dated a girl whose professor parents had covered literally every wall in their home-including those in the stairways and bathrooms-with bookshelves, all of which were overflowing.

So I'd say I have a lot.

I have to own my books. Because I've moved around so much the past few years, I've never had all my books in one place. Slowly, I am fixing that problem, because I have a book room in tihs apartment. I'd say I have about 2/3rd of my book collection here. It doesn't matter how often I actually look at 90% of the these books, because what if one day I need/want a specific book and it's not there?

I also learned that when setting up bookshelves you should decide where you want them before you fill them with books. Because if you're 5'3, moving a 6 foot tall bookshelf that is filled with books is not going to happen.

In my youth I spent a lot of time in the library. But nowadays, if I want to read a book, I tend to buy it and almost never check out books from the library because:

1) I like to re-read books, so it's worth my while to own them.

2) The real cool and popular books at the library are often checked out, at least when they first come out. Oh, you can request them, which means you can get put on a waiting list to see them in a few weeks or months. But I hate waiting for a book I want to read.

3) A lot of the books I want to read are paperbacks, and those are either not available, or at least hard to find, at the library.

4) It's a lot easier to find a book on amazon.com compared to physically locating it in the library or bookstore.

As for how many books I own, I have filled two 7' x 3' bookshelves and have enough to almost fill a third one, if I had a third one. That's probably really not all that many, because much of my nonfiction reading needs are filled by reading stuff online. (But that's all shorter-than-book-length material.

Also, a lot of my owned books tend to be either SF paperbacks or oversized illustration-heavy books (about art, illustration, animals, and prehistoric life, mostly).

This is always a trying situation. Friends of mine rank throwing out a book as only slightly less difficult than throwing out a kitten or a baby. As they used to say, "It's a book, not a choice."

I generally buy or borrow, having a weird aversion to libraries. I like to browse at home for stuff to reread. I also am sort of collecting hardback printings of Clifford Simak novels.

Once again, Google is my friend.

Well, I don't feel like I have a lot of books. Looking around, I seem to have about seven shelves' worth, plus one or two shelves scattered around the floor which I haven't put away yet.

On the other hand, this is my college dorm room. That's all that will fit. At home just my room has about six wide shelves of books (two double-shelved), plus three or four full boxes of books in the closet. And the family has a few walls full; I wouldn't be surprised if we had 10,000 altogether. Though I freely admit that that particular number is wholly autoproctological.

I need to make some bookshelves for the spare bedroom now that we have it painted. I refuse to purchase WalMart $30 bookcases any longer. The last batch I bought had barely enough "backerboard" to nail to the shelves and they fell apart, I kid you not, as we were sliding them into place before any books were at roost.

Besides, with custom building I can incorporate places to showcase other stuff plus give it a steampunky/victorian feel.

I can't handle used books. What if somebody used the book to kill someone?

People think I'm joking when I say that, but some things just develop souls after a certain age. Books are one of them. I never even used to throw away books; I'd give them to the library, or bury them if they were too far gone. Eventually I ran out of space and had to cremate them, but I still never threw them away.

Okay, here's a philosophical debate for which I'd like your advice: as I mentioned, I'm trying to reduce the number of books I own. Jeff and I have a debate on paper vs. hardback: I say if you have two or more copies of a book, you keep the hardcover and dispose of the paperback, on the grounds that the hardback is nicer and lasts longer. Jeff prefers to keep the paperback on the grounds that it's lighter. What do you guys think?

Oooh, I like the vinyl-cassette quote, and may use it soon.

You keep both. IT'S A BOOK, NOT A CHOICE.

In all seriousness, Rachel, I would LOVE nothing more than to be able to tell somebody "Okay, on X date I'll have over a thousand books for you to have absolutely free; the only catch is, YOU have to pick them up. And take them ALL with you."

I'd do it. I'm unemployed and have nothing better to do. And anything I didn't want I'd just pass on to one of the other book-loving/collecting people I know.

Hmm. In that case, let me talk to Jeff. Thus far it's been an occasional kind of thing, and I haven't even ventured down into the basement storage room. What's your car like--four-seater? Big trunk? How much cargo can you safely carry before you have to worry about things like obscuring your vision?

Also, I lack boxes. These books will be in stacks small enough for me to carry.

Rachel's going to come by at some point, Ali, after I go through the basement storage. I feel bad now, and wish I hadn't donated any books at all to the Goodwill, since there were some y'all would certainly have liked.

There's all sorts of stuff remaining. Some is pure crap: say, I had time to kill so I went to a thrift store and bought some pop novel for a dime or a quarter. Some's curiosity-value stuff, again from thrift stores or library sales: I just added to the pile a book of Christian fundamentalist crap about how Satan controls everything, for example. Books that were bestsellers in the 60s or 70s but everyone's forgotten them now. Books that went to the remainder bin shortly after publication. Compendiums of columns from columnists I'd never heard of, and after reading their book I understood why. Collections of cartoons, some good, some not.

I can't even remember what's in the boxes in the basement, nor how much is there; we basically filled the storage bin when we moved in over three years ago, and except for Christmas decorations we haven't taken anything out since.

Right now I'm debating whether or not to get rid of any of my history books. In fact, I gave most of the obvious-crap choices to the Goodwill already: yes, I satisfied my curiosity as to what Howard Stern wrote in his book, and I don't suppose the 25 cents was wasted per se.

In the pile I've started making here, hardcover books include Jon Stewart's America (I received a surplus copy as a gift), a book of mystery stories with female detectives, a couple of antique novels and some columns and comedians.

By the way, I apologize -- I should've posted a note as soon as Rachel agreed to take the books, and I forgot. Sorry about that.

Hey Ali, if you want to drive to Connecticut too, we can fight over the books! :-) It would be fun.

You're on! And it just so happens that I like history books too.

Oooh, I think having Ali and Rachel over at the same time sounds like fun, whether they're fighting or not. And I'm located almost exactly halfway between Boston and New York.

In all seriousness, you two (and any other Grylliaders in the area), I'm also looking to get rid of some household items, mostly knickknacks, glassware and a LOT of artsy oil lamps and candle holders. (They're all small and lightweight, but still a pain to move because they're mostly breakable and must first be carefully wrapped and cushioned and etc. before you put them in a box.) If you'd like, I could get a lot of that stuff together too, if you might want any of it. That would be an a la carte thing, not a "if you take any you've got to take all" deal. Though I'd prefer you take as much as possible.

This is stuff that's worth SOME money, but not enough for it to be worth my while to sell it on eBay.

As an inveterate packrat, I find it hard to throw anything out. I have my Scientific Americans back to the 80's, books I haven't read in 30 years, even old scratched LPs.

I really gotta have a purge.

While I'll be in central Mass., I was just teasing Rachel. I won't have the time tomorrow either.