Joseph ’s Comments (group member since Jul 28, 2009)

Joseph ’s comments from the Book Buying Addicts Anonymous group.

Thought others might find this article interesting.

PERENNIAL QUESTION: CAN A PERSON HAVE TOO MANY BOOKS?
http://bookriot.com/2016/11/02/perenn...

Share the books you get for yourself this November.

End of October and I'm up to 330 which means I've been averaging 33 books a month so far this year. I wonder if I can keep that up for just two more months and end up with 390 for the year. Time will tell. :-)

Fitting for Halloween, abibliophobia means "The fear of running out of things to read."

What brought this question to mind is I was just given a gift of a book Chicago and Its Makers, that was published in 1929 and is #499 of 2000 limited editions. It's age and being limited made me want to learn more about it. One of the things I found is that several places online people are selling copies for $275-350. It looks like a fascinating over 1000 paged book that I think I want to keep, but I am a small bit tempted to sell it if I could for somewhere around those prices. Would you sell it? Have you sold any of your books before? Any major sales you'd care to share?

Ashley *Hufflepuff Kitten* wrote: "I try to keep authors together as much as possible so I'm not running around thinking I'm missing one of their books somewhere, but here's a small current issue: my historical fiction collection fi..."

I know what you mean. I generally group my books by genre and then alphabetically by author. I like to keep an author's works together, but when they write different genres I do split them up. Also, when an author uses several different pseudonyms but still writes the same genre, I like to keep all of those together under the author's true name. For example, I have all of Jayne Castle's futuristic romances and Amanda Quick's historical romances kept in the K's with Jayne Ann Krentz's contemporary romances. And when multiple authors write a series, I shelve those under the name of the series.

A few more delivered:

Taylor wrote: "You and me both, Outlaw. But I'm afraid that I would also need a bigger house to accommodate those shelves. I think I'm almost out of room."

Nah, you just need to get rid of some of that unneeded furniture, like the living room sofa or your dining room table maybe even your bed, you could always just sleep on the floor, right? ;-) I shouldn't tease, though. The primary thing I was looking for when I bought my house was whether it had enough space for my books, and believe it or not, that was about 2500 books ago. :-)

Pixie ☕ wrote: "My husband recently bought me an embosser for my birthday, which I will only use on keepers. We will most likely be moving next year, so I am thinking of embossing them all when I restructure my library, rather than drag them all off the shelves now. I can't wait though!"

That certainly would be a good time to do it. I've considered marking my books as mine somehow, but I must admit I am dreading pulling each of my over 8000 books off the shelf one by one. I just did a major shifting of the shelves for my fantasy books and that was bad enough. Oh well, maybe one day. :-)

Pixie wrote: "Please tell me I'm not the worst here for hoarding??! :)"

Pixie, my personal library consists of 8879 books, 5882 of which are unread thus far (although some of those are reference books so won't be read cover-to-cover). Mine are a mix of hardcover, paperbacks, audio, etc. but not a single e-book.

According to my math, 58% of your library is unread, while 66% of my library is, so no, you are not the worst hoarder. :-)

In my defense, though, I mostly buy secondhand and I have the money
I would use the same defense,

just wish I could read faster and there were more hours in the day.
And boy do I wish the same!

Absolutely zero regrets though ;)

Great minds think alike! ;-)

Been a long week, so to make myself feel better, I treated myself to a trip to Half Price Books and came home with:

Another couple used books picked up: and two new bought at Sam's Club:

TSUNDOKU: THE ACQUIRING OF READING MATERIALS FOLLOWED BY LETTING THEM PILE UP AND SUBSEQUENTLY NEVER READING THEM
http://www.ozy.com/acumen/theres-a-wo...


None of us ever do that, right? ;-)

Haven't got much so far, just:

Ashley *Hufflepuff Kitten* wrote: "Not purchases but yesterday was my birthday and I got

[bookcover:Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan|293704..."

Happy belated birthday Ashley!

Share what treats you got for yourself this October.

Domonique wrote: "Joseph wrote: "That is amazing, how do you manage to read so many?"

Sorry I didn't answer your question sooner, but in any case, I manage to read so many by way of a combo of a couple of things.
1. Pretty much I read whenever I have the time and being a bachelor means I have plenty of free time for just me.
2. To be honest, I'm a skim reader, I don't seem to read every word which leads to 3. I pretty much read at a rate of 100 pages per hour, so finishing a 300 page book is easy to do every evening. I often set up my weekend as Saturday is for chores and errands and Sunday for just reading, so I can sometimes finish three books in one day easily.
4. Being a librarian doesn't hurt, reading is part of the job. :-)

I've reached my goal of 300! And still with three months left to go! :-)

I remember when I was younger I read nothing but mysteries, Hardy Boys among them. As I got older, I discovered gradually the other genres that are out there. Now, I read in spurts of genres. A couple mysteries, then some fantasies, then a few historical fictions, etc. etc.

What really matters is that your are at least reading something, but as they say, variety is the spice of life. Give yourself some challenge, too. If you want to stick to the "beef" of mysteries, a couple of "cheeseburgers" like Hardy Boys are fine now and then, but be sure every so often to sink your teeth into a "steak" like Sherlock Holmes, too.

A nice couple arrived: