Booking Through Thursday is hosted by Deb.When’s the last time you weeded out your library? Do you regularly keep it pared down to your reading essentials? Or does it blossom into something out of control the minute you turn your back, like a garden after a Spring rain?
Or do you simply not get rid of books? At all? (This would have described me for most of my life, by the way.)
And–when you DO weed out books from your collection (assuming that you do) …what do you do with them? Throw them away (gasp)? Donate them to a charity or used bookstore? SELL them to a used bookstore? Trade them on Paperback Book Swap or some other exchange program?
Before the whole book blogging biz, I did collect books, but actually started to weed through them the year before I started blogging. I turned them in at the little used book store in town. But I kept the favorite ones. My mom had always given me the miscellaneous hand-me-downs and that is what spurred on weeding them out.
Now with the review copies landing on my doorstep, my 'library' has quadrupled. My mom has now read some of the books that I haven't even gotten a chance to yet! She is a quick reader, and doesn't have family obligations anymore 24/7, as it's my turn to raise a family. She's so much faster that I am contemplating getting her into the review biz too!
I keep most of my books now, in the beginning when I didn't know what I was asking for I got some genres of books I don't prefer, so those are the ones that tend to go away via the used book store or paperbackswap. But many of the books from publishers are ARC's and so they have accumulated some. If it is one that I know will just collect dust, then I do a giveaway on the blog for it, since those are not for sale.
I do have some books from my high school days. My brother is holding a bunch more hostage till doomsday I suppose, but I do hope to get those back, even if just for my daughter's sake.
I have also bought a lot of books in the last year or received from Paperbackswap, and those are for my permanent collection. They are the ones you see on my Mailbox Monday posts, that are mostly historical fiction. I know have an additional 4 full bookcases that I didn't have at this time last year. I don't buy or order a book if I don't intend it for my permanent collection. I have a dream. But this is for when we move, or the kids move, whichever comes first. That dream is to have a room that I can call a library, and more importantly, mine.
What about you?
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