I really dont think i can part with any of my books.
I go through phases... change genres and preferences all the time...
Each book meant something to me at some point in my life. Its almost like a photo album, I can pick up a book and remember what i was doing, who i was hanging out with, what i was feeling at the time i was reading it.

Not to mention i am building up quite a library for myself!

But what about you? Are there any books you would not be willing to get rid of?

I have a few that I just cannot part with. A hardcover edition of Agatha Christie's autobiography is one I read over and over and will never part with. Another is a first edition of Around the World with Auntie Mame (sequal to the original Auntie Mame novel). Apparently it was never originally published in hardcover for paper shortage reasons (?) and was first released in a small paperback printing. I also have a huge copy of the collected works of Dickens that is no collector's item, but is sentimental because it was the first book I saved up to buy while in high school. (Thats the kind of book geek I am, LOL)

Harry Potter
My Sergei
This Moment on Earth (mostly because I got it autographed by the authors)
Tuesdays with Morrie
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

The Village of Bom Jesus by Lloyd Hill
The Living by Annie Dillard
The Sleep Book By Dr.Suess

Having moved around a bit in my life time, I was forced, at various times, to let go of some of my books......very painful experiance.
I keep most everything. I have a book inscribed "Merry Christmas Jeannie
Love, Mom and Dad ---- 1955"
I am getting better at giving books away once I've read them but my older ones are with me for life. They are more than a book.....they are the time and place in which I read them. Letting go of books is like letting go of friends.

"They are more than a book.....they are the time and place in which I read them. Letting go of books is like letting go of friends. ".....

Jeannie, you stole the words right out of my mouth!

I have a box of Bibles that various people in my family have owned over several generations. Some are falling apart, others have very fragile pages. I don't even know who owned some of the Bibles but I can't seem to part with them.

I have a few....
To Kill a Mockingbird
Don't Sweat the Small stuff(and it's all small stuff)
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
A Place to Call Home
The Canterbury Tales

I have the Cleveland Armory trilogy: The Cat Who Came for Christmas, The Cat and the Curmudgeon, and The Best Cat Ever - all personalize to me and signed by Mr. Armory.

Also I have signed first editions of the complete works of Dennis Lehane (who wrote Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone). I met him when he was an unknown in a local Boston bookstore and I bought his first book.

I've got a couple of books that have sentimental value: "The Baby Beebee Bird", a couple of the "Great Brain" series, a first edition "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", and the "Little House on the Prarie" set, all from when I was little.

I love old books, and the few that I have, I couldn't bear to part with: "The Spell of the Yukon", by Robert W. Service, dated around the turn of the centure, I think; four or five of the old "Cherry Ames" series, a couple of old "Partridge Family" paperback books, and a couple of first edition Pearl Buck books (although not "The Good Earth", naturally).

Most books, though, I love because of what's IN them; other than ones that are inscribed, they can usually be replaced (although if they go out of print, I'm in trouble...I just tried looking for books from "The Three Investigators" series [anybody remember those??], and I was S.O.L.).

Anyway, I'm new; nice to meet you!

My Neil Gaiman collection, The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, my many mythology books. . . . well, just about everything on my bookshelf is a keeper.

But especially the beaten up copy of The Sneetches & Other Stories by Dr. Seuss that my Mom gave me after buying a new copy for herself. That one has a lot of memories. The spine is completely gone, but the pages are still sewn together pretty tightly. Gotta love old books. :)

Oh gosh I love all my books! But my most beloved book is probably Ella Enchanted. I've had it since I got into reading... and of course probably my BSC series and Jud Blumes. LOL. You can't find those babies anywhere anymore.

Well, hopefully, come February 19th, I will have three books that I would never ever ever let go of, and those would be three signed copies of David Maines novels.

A girlfriend and I are going to see him at his book reading session in NYC... I am so excited I cannot wait. Its like waiting for christmas to come!

River God - Wilbur Smith
The Collected Poems of A.E. Housman
The Poetry of Robert Frost
The Lion's Game - Nelson DeMille
London - Edward Rutherfurd

Even though I just finished it I can not see myself ever getting rid of The Shadow of the Wind
or The Meaning of Night for that matter.

I just recently decided to clean off some shelves. But I did have a pile that I couldn't part with. The Illustrated versions of DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, 3 weeks with my Brother by Nicholas Sparks, Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom, and Corker by Anya Bateman. These are my all time favorites that I can read over and over.

All of my Harry Potters (I have multiple editions of most of them), my copy of To Kill A Mockingbird but I may buy a new copy to read as the one I've got I've had for twenty plus years and it's getting a little ragged, my hardback 50's and 60's editions of Beverly Cleary's Henry Huggins and Ramona Quimby books, my signed LKH series, my Postsecret books.

Harry Potter Series
Little House on the Prairie Series
The Chronicles of Narnia
Erma Bombeck books
Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul
Grimm's Fairy Tales

There are so many I love. It's so hard to choose and I could never part with them:)

Diane,
I'm so jealous you met Dennis Lehane. I love him!!

I would never get rid of my Anne McCaffrey Books.
Harry Potter
Howl's Moving Castle
The Time Travel Quartet
Young Wizards
And the "Once upon a Time" Fairy tell retellings

Like everyone else, there are quite a few I couldn't get rid of. Among those are:
Harry Potter series
several Bobbsey Twins Mysteries
John Bellairs Mysteries(oh I think I need to reread these again)
The Mist of Avalon
The Shadow of the Wind
Carter Beats the Devil
The Da Vinci Code
several of my grandfather's school books
The King's Stiles by Dr Suess(this is a book that no one seems to remember)
The Dark Materials Trilogy
China Bayles Mysteries
Inkheart and Inkspell
The Dark is Rising series

You get the picture. I don't have room for all the books read, much less, those that are unread.

My author signed books, mainly Lonesome Dove.

Oh my gosh...there are so many! I don't part with things very often (trust me...ask my mom & my best friend...I am a hoarder!) I love all of my books! I don't even like to lend them out to others:( I may have to think about it in terms of what books I would grab if there were a fire raging & I only had a minute to grab books...I'll get back to you on this!

My Bob Shaw books, especially my Granada Edition of Orbitsville, with the Tim White painting on the cover.

My P. G. Wodehouse collection.

My Fredric Brown collection.

My signed copy of Up The Line, by Robert Silverberg.

The Wandering Jew, by Eugene Sue; The Painted Bird, by Jerzy Kosinski; Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo.

My Perry Rhodan set.

My Doctor Who set.

The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers; Replay, by Ken Grimwood; Time And Again, by Jack Finney.

My Ed McBain "87th Precinct" collection.

i don't ever plan on getting rid of any of the books on my "all time favs" shelf! since there's 32 or more of them listed there, i won't hog up space here! feel free to take a look at this shelf on my profile!

I find it nearly physically impossible to get rid of books. Starting with the trashiest, mostly pulp fiction, sci-fi that I fell head-over-heels for in 3rd grade up through today, I have only been able to get rid of 50 or 60 titles. I even bought multiple copies of books that I recommend to people so I can lend them out without having to be afraid of not getting them back, or getting them back damaged. Like an earlier poster wrote, my books are not just the stories within them but also a touchstone for the time/place where I initially read them. This is especially true with my bookmarks, which tend to be scraps of food packaging, subway tickets, concert tickets, beer labels, or whatever detritus is on hand from wherever I find myself. Flipping through a book takes me back to where I was when I read it- it's a very basic time machine .

That said, if my house were on fire and I had to run for my life, there are books I would risk serious injury in order to save.

My signed copy of Stranger in a Strange Land. The first edition Ender's Game that my wife bought me for Christmas one year. My mom's old copy of Catcher in the Rye which she marked up very thoroughly for a Lit class in college. My grandmother's first edition hardcover copy of The Grapes of Wrath. My mom's extremely battered copy of On The Road, which was her bible in the late 60s when she hitched up and down California.

Still, were I to lose any of the other books on my shelf I would be absolutely devastated and would probably have to camp out in a bookstore to deal with the loss. Especially because I finally inherited most of my parent's library, the books I loved so much in my childhood, because they were preparing to move out of the country. Those books are really irreplaceable.

all of them!!!

too true Jeane.
too true.

Well I am a member of BookMooch, so I don't really have a problem parting with some of my books if it means I will get new ones. But there are some that will never leave my shelves:

Harry Potter series
The Catcher in the Rye
The Great Gatsby
Any presidential/historical books
All of my books about Lucille Ball/I Love Lucy

I like to keep all my books but these for sure will be kept.

My Twilight series
The Other Boleyn Girl

This question is a hard one, since I own so many books. I tried to think of it in terms of ones that I would have to keep in a scenario where I had only a small living space, like a room. Some that would go with me are the Harry Potter books, The Twilight series, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Spoon River Anthology, Laurie R. King's Mary Russell/Sherlock Homes series, all Roald Dahl books I own, Sena Jeter Naslund's Ahab's Wife and Abundance, Robert Frost collections, Lori Lansen's The Girls, John Irving's A Widow For One Year, Pat Conroy's Beach Music, Edgar Alan Poe collection, Call of the Wild, Jane Eyre, Rebecca, Fahrenheit 451, Doomsday Book ...
OK, I give up. This is too hard.

I feel the same as you do Lori. My books are a part of who I was, and who I am. I think I've tossed maybe one or two throughout the years, and only because they were ruined beyond repair. I don't think I could ever part with any of my books....=( I better stop buying book soon though, because if I don't and I can't toss any, I'm going to have to buy a house just to store them all!! Ha ha.

Although I do trade in some of my books for newer books at used book stores, there are some that I will never get rid of.

I have two sets of Harry Potter books: one set I read repeatedly, and another that's all hardcover that I have only read once. Catcher in the Rye, The Witches, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Count of Monte Cristo and To Kill a Mockingbird.

these are the books I won't ever part with, they are too sentimental!

My Bible given to me by my mom who had it before she was married; and my Bible given to me by my church for graduation. Oh-and Lord of the Rings.
I'd also never give away/throw away my stories that I have finished (though I've thrown away a LOT that I started and knew I'd never finish).

Its not what books I must keep as those I can bear to part with. Books that I buy as paperbacks I feel less sense of ownership with - I've read the story, I don't mind (much) that it will have to go to make room for more books. But hardbacks, my precious animal intelligence collection, the art books, the biographies - these I pack in boxes and pile them on top of the wardrobe rather than part with them.

Of course, my copies of books signed by the author. Will not part with those.
Some others...Audition, Perfect Storm, Harry Potter Series, Tale of Two Cities, some Autobiography's and Biographies
Infidel
Christmas Train
A Walk in the Woods
An Innocent Man
Water For Elephants
The Autobiography of Santa Claus
The Tender Bar
Island of the Blue Dolphins
The Notebook
The Wedding
1776
Cane River....

I too am a Moocher and a Swapper so I have no problem trading, especially paperbacks.
I tend to like to keep books that I have absolutely loved and most non-fiction.

It would be hard to part with any of them really, and there are some I won't even loan out. Making my tops:

A Fine Balance
Atlas Shrugged
Fall on Your Knees
The Way the Crow Flies: A Novel
The Poisonwood Bible

Phantom Tollbooth...my absolute favorite from childhood

I do give books to charity and I did give many to bookmooch. I even give away some books I have enjoyed. Sometimes I just don't have an attachment to books and some I do and couldn't get rid of.

I can't explain what makes me attached and what doesn't. Maybe I just know I won't read it again - but there are many books on my shelves I know I probably won't read again. I guess with some I just feel I should share them.

I just feel attached to books, even books that aren't mine..I can't stand it when I see how some people threat their books, it makes me feel bad. And they aren't even mine!!! it doesn't make sense.

I know what you mean Jeane, I feel the same way about books! When I get a library book and someone has turned the corner down, I try to straighten it and I'm thinking, "What in the XXX do they think they were doing?" Thought it was just me!!
I am a book hoarder too but would have to list my poetry books as those I would never get rid of; Robert Frost, Mary Oliver, Emily Dickinson... and my biographies, and The Secret Life of Bees, and Kathleen Woodwiss (loved her books when I was a teenager!) and.....well I don't want to get rid of any of my books!

I am a book hoarder. I could never, never, never be able to throw away any book... I wouldn't be able to choose, if I had to: all, or no one I'd say! :)

I am keeping all of them, with the following exceptions:
- the dean koontz books
- some (not all) of the books I have 2 or more copies of.

The rest are MINE and going to stay that way :)

Jeane, you should start a Battered Book Society and rescue all those mistreated books.

I think I would be too emotional about them and if people see how I would threat them, they would think if I am nuts! I just had an image of me after I rescued one.....better keep the image for myself..they already don't want me anymore in the mental hospital

Jeane, you may not want to look at this then:

How To make a purse out of old Reader's Digest Condensed Classics

Let's see:
The Harry Potter books by JK Rowling
The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer
Pay it forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

The reason for this is because they bring a lot of memories to me :)

The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
A copy of Little Women that was given to me by a family friend when I was in 6th grade
For One More Day by Mitch Albom
The Harry Potter Series
The Last Lecture

twilight series, harry potter series, hmmm... wat else

Oh where should I start. My 1881 leather bound complete works of Shakespeare. My Keats & Shelley Leather bound antique editions. ALL of my Rod McKuen poetry books. Robert Jordan, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, CS Lewis books, Little Women, All my Hard back books. Too many to list!