Discussion Friday

[geraineon]

Been really busy packing to move countries (I am flying end of next week), and I have to make some hard decisions about books to keep and books to give away.

So, this week's question (not specific to cnovels) is, what is your habit when it comes to books?

Do you hoard, or do you spring clean and give away often? If you have to pare down your bookshelf to ten books, can you? And how will you make that decision?

(also, for my reference, if you have moved countries before, what did you do with your books?)

Comments

[geraineon]

The closer I get to the day I fly, the more I am able to part with my books. But textbooks are expensive and some I do still find useful, so those are the ones I am bringing back with me, along with BL novels and yuri manga because those will be hard to get from the country I am flying to, ahaha. That still leaves plenty of books to bring back and I'm dreading trying to navigate my way to the airport with all my luggage orz

(this means all the danmei and the recent Galette yuri anthology I backed on Kickstarter. btw, three days left to back Galette vol. 3!

Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/galetteworks/vol3-yuri-comic-magazine-galette-special-english-edition)

[duckprintspress]

can you ship boxes to your new address instead? when I was moving from Japan to the US I had a bajillion books and it was expensive to ship them but it was still better than carrying them...

[douqi]

Seconded, a friend moving from the UK to Australia shipped most of their heavy stuff (including books) and found it pretty easy.

[geraineon]

I can. I guess I can still consider... there is a post office near enough.

[larryhammer]

We have an extensive library. As in thousands of books. We used to have more, but we had to clear out a room to make space for a kid -- our best guess is we sold off 1500. We've been better since about culling books we aren't likely to (re)read, but we still have nine full-height double-shelved cases, plus the kid has a case of their own.

That said, we've more than once mentally played out "what would we absolutely have to take if we moved countries." We might be able to get it down to a three-four shippable boxes, supplemented by ebooks. Maybe.

[geraineon]

Someday, I will settle down and have an extensive library too! That's awesome.

I tried very hard to just buy ebooks but somehow still managed to accumulate lots of physical books *sigh*

[full_metal_ox]

I’ve had to make that decision twice in the past ten years, once for a move across town and once across country; both moves already occasioned some painful triage.

I hoard. A lot of my books are oddball esoterica that would be difficult and costly, if not impossible, to replace. My family is pressuring me to give away still more, but to whom? I’m in a blood-red part of Florida, and Half-Price Books is now defunct in the whole damn state. The closest thing to a secondhand bookstore within convenient reach is a church-run thrift store—-who’d just love my dirty underground comics, punk fanzines, and witchcraft books, right?

[geraineon]

Yeah, I had to cull books moving from Midwest to West Coast of the U.S.

oof, yeah, location does make it harder. I'm lugging all my BL/danmei/yuri stuff with me because I know it'll be really hard to get them after I move =(

And I do have a lot of zines/comics/etc. too.

[anne]

1. Is it easily replaced?
2. When did I last read it? Am I going to reread it ever again?
3. Will it make me very very sad to get rid of this particular copy?

...and now I've added "is it queer by any possible definition?" and if it is, I'm not getting rid of it until sanity has returned.

Fortunately there's a kid in my life who likes the same stuff Kid Me did, so I've unloaded some sentimental favorites. So now they're in the "presents; no longer my business" part of my brain.

[geraineon]

Yeah, your step 1-3 is kinda how I'm working through my books too. I have to be a little harder on myself for (3), but (1) and (2) definitely drives my decision a lot.

[anne]

If there's anything you're really on the fence about, send it here for safekeeping, I'm serious. You or someone you know will have suitcase room at some later date.

[geraineon]

<3 Thank you

My housemate offered to keep the things I feel really strongly about, so I'm good on that front! She's gonna be going back to Vietnam at least once a year, which makes it easier for me to get them from her later.

[anne]

I'm so glad! That will be much better, yes.

[liliacs]

My preferences changed over the years. When I was young, I'd hoard books because I loved reading but the bookstores nearby didn't have a lot of variety, so if I went to a good bookstore I'd buy a lot. But later on, it became easy to get stuff digitally so I became more selective about what I'd buy. Now I mainly buy physical copies if I 1) really really want them and/or 2) I don't expect to find it anywhere online.

When I moved countries, I only brought eight books with me, and they were the eight I couldn't find copies of anywhere and would be very expensive to buy again. But I'll say there were other circumstances going on that made me have to be extremely selective. If the circumstances were more normal, I wouldn't have been so strict. Like now I'm trying to buy danmei and baihe prints for the first time and I don't think I'd be able to convince myself to only choose eight again!

I didn't give away any of my old books from before I moved because I had family who was still interested so they kept them. I'm open to giving away books I don't care for anymore, but very reluctant to give up books for space reasons. I might eventually have to but I'll put it off as long as possible.

[geraineon]

Yeah, any queer books are the ones I have to keep with me because it's hard to buy them in the country I am going to... I gave away books I know I can buy again if I really want them, but kept all those that I cannot.

I wish we have a pocket space we can shove all our books in.

[halfcactus]

I have been ebooks-only for the past 5 years and am only recently letting myself make physical purchases again. The most annoying part is comics (that are not webtoons) bc I still prefer digitals bc they're more practical but I really have a hard time reading comics and graphic novels digitally bc they're just not formatted for it. I have also been trying to sell off my old books for the past 5 years. It was so draining for me as a true-blue introvert that I've settled on putting them in a book donation box near me. I usually haul in bags of books as part of my LNY decluttering, but I'm struggling with graphic novels bc I think I have to sell them or give them to someone who would actually want them.

As for habits, I try to set aside a budget for 1 book/ month (which works out bc I'm a very slow reader), but lately I've been transferring that budget over to webtoon currency. ^^;

Books I'd hold on to if I had to pare down my collection: I think non-fiction ones bc I don't have a lot lol and these ones are better as physicals than digitals.

[geraineon]

I feel you about comics and graphic novels on ebook reader! It's awful, I hate it! But it's so space saving *sigh*

Will your library accept these books? Maybe instead of selling, you can donate... (I feel you about having no energy to sell them too)

[douqi]

I used to hoard, but I'm getting a lot better at clearing out stuff that I thought was meh or just doesn't resonate with me anymore (mostly applies to SFF books). I've also become a lot more discerning when it comes to buying books — being close to the library also helps in this regard, since I can use it to check out new-to-me authors I'm not sure I'll like. Also helps that my friend's teenage daughter is now a keen SFF reader, so I can offload some titles to her.

If you have to pare down your bookshelf to ten books
Impossible task for me, definitely! I've had a personal book collection since I was about eight, I'm not sure I would continue to exist without one.

I've only moved countries once and didn't take much with me then. Whenever I've moved cities I've ended up culling quite a lot of my book collection — the last time I got it down to about four medium-sized moving boxes, after giving a load of SFF books I was no longer into to the local university's SFF society.

I am currently in the process of collecting every single baihe novel ever professionally published in print and sold through regular channels (plus self-published versions of my favourites), so I can foresee that doing a number on my limited shelf space. Still, that's a problem for future douqi.

[geraineon]

Nice!! I got a whole bunch of books from my mother's friend's daughter's collection and that was how my reading habit got started XD

I'm definitely keeping more than 10 books and I'd die if I have to pick 10 too.

I'm sure future douqi will figure something out~ In the meantime, yolo.

[duckprintspress]

I had like 2000 books when I was young, and then I moved 8 times in 7 years and I vastly reduced how many. Now my approach is that I only buy/keep the books I expect to reread. Everything else I just get from the library. That said, I still have a ridiculous number of books, especially when you consider there's also all my wife's books and all my kids' books, but I still think I have less than my absolute peak.

I do spring clean and give away often; I'll periodically pick a shelf or two and just grab anything I'm like, "ya know, I don't think I need this anymore."

If I had to pare down to ten books, I'd honestly probably just not try. I'd go to zero instead. Because picking only ten would be next to impossible (like, several of my favorite series' are longer than 10 books). It'd honestly be easier to lose everything, I think.

and yes, I moved countries! I went from the US, to Japan, to back to the US. I put my US stuff in storage and brought hardly anything to Japan (I ended up buying books I already owned while I was there as a result). Then I bought like 4x my bodyweight in books while I was in Japan, and I shipped most of those back, tho the ones I cared about most, I put in my luggage. I did permanent damage to my elbow getting those boxes of books to the post office, lmao. I shipped them to my mom's house in the States.

[geraineon]

2000!

... I never counted my books but I'm sure I'm not even close. I moved a few times in my childhood.

I'm not looking forward to lugging my mostly-books two extra large luggage with me to the airport orz

[duckprintspress]

I only know about how many because I entered them all in LibraryThing. By hand. I. needed better hobbies in 2007, lmao.

[thawrecka]

I regularly give away books, which is honestly mostly because seeing books I didn't enjoy in my home annoys me 😂 I give books for presents at every birthday, and most of those are books that I've already (attempted to) read. I come from a family that likes to keep books circulating - my aunt regularly gets given crime thrillers and will pass them on when they're read, and my grandma used to do the same with romance novels. If I can't give away or donate a book I don't want anymore, I honestly just bin it.

I don't think I could cut down to ten books, though. I have a lot of books that are out of print, and if I got rid of them I would probably not find them again.

[geraineon]

Ahh, I wish more of my family reads. I'm more of the anomaly so I have nobody to give them to. I can't bring myself to bin books though, so I keep them around, hoping to find someone who can give these books a better home (or to the library).