Book Hoarding

[Cnev]

I find moving greatly exacerbates this problem. I moved 2 months ago, and I still have all my books scattered across my floor in random piles while my bookcases remain empty because just thinking about organizing them exhausts me. I bought 2 new books last week and just threw them on a random pile. Funnily enough, I still know the exact location of every book from memory when I was sorting them for packing. I still have old textbooks from college, and even found two library books I rented in high school for a paper I had to write on female serial killers. That was almost 20 years ago.

[Spectral Tapeworm]

I suppose in the last couple years I've started engaging in this little hobby. It's not my first foray into the wonderful world of hoarding, in fact I come from a distinguished line of collectors, re-users and savers; three generations to be exact. Anyways, there were these two wonderful used bookstores right next door to one another downtown, not too far from where I live. The younger of the two, Pearsons Twice Sold Tales, closed year before last, and I found myself buying from them compulsively every week. The senior of the two, The Yesteryear Shoppe, announced they were closing last year, and I did the same thing. I'm sure I spent hundreds of dollars, and purchased countless books of fantasy, philosophy, mythology and whatever else struck my fancy... My (limited) shelf space has become uncomfortably crowded since then.

On a semi-related note, I am now more or less forced to buy books through online suppliers. I dislike this very much, but there simply are no more brick and mortar book stores near me. The convenience is nice I suppose, but the mystique is just not there. Nothing quite like an old used book store, full of hidden gems yellowed from time- waiting for you to discover them. Walking past those towering shelves, scanning volumes for something you've been looking for- or maybe something you didn't even know you needed... until that moment.

It's a terrible time to be a romantic, or an antiquarian for that matter.

[DarkDweller]

I always struggle with where to store my books and always end up giving some away, donating, and/or going to the used book store to trade. But the books keep growing. We even have books in plastic tubs down in the basement because there’s no room for them.

[marioneta]

My closets have more books in them than clothes. Once I looked for a book I wanted to read, but couldn't find it. I ended up going online and ordering it. Later, after a few months, I found the mislayed book while looking for another one. Talk about the hoarding blues.....

How can you control yourself, master your behavior, when you come from a country where people howl at funerals.
-E.M. Cioran

[Caliban]

I’m a bit of a book hoarder. I have loads of books and when I - hopefully finally - move out of my parents house the thought of transporting them without breaking them fills me with dread.

My hardback copy of the Gormenghast Books is like a bible to me - I know that’s beyond stupid - and I couldn’t cope if it got ruined.

My book buying upsets my Dad who often bemoans that I don’t have ‘normal’ interests like football and things even the books I buy a weird and strange because he’s never heard of them. He once saw the cover of D.P. Watt’s Almost Insentient Almost Divine and said it was creepy.

I’m currently trying to stop myself purchasing the Everyman Classics editions of Thomas Mann. They have: Magic Mountain, Buddenbrooks, Collected Stories, Faust and Joseph and His Brothers. It would set me back nearly £100 and I still have a never ending TBR pile.

[Michael]

It is 100% awesome to treat a hardback Gormenghast copy as a Bible.

And I don't call it book hoarding, I call it "preparing for the decline of Western Civilization." Like the Book People in Fahrenheit 451. Viva la Revolucion

[marioneta]

I see.my book hoarding in a way like the medieval monks saw ancient manuscripts, a way to conserve a light of knowledge, even though weird knowledge, in the increasing darkness of creeping fascism. My book hoard is my monastery.

[Caliban]

Quote Originally Posted by marioneta

I see.my book hoarding in a way like the medieval monks saw ancient manuscripts, a way to conserve a light of knowledge, even though weird knowledge, in the increasing darkness of creeping fascism. My book hoard is my monastery.

I really like that idea but I don’t have an actual library they’re just sort of haphazardly scattered.

I do really love the idea though, it makes me feel a bit like Bede!

[marioneta]

I don't have a lot of room. My "study"has two bookcases full to bursting. All my other books are scattered about the house, mostly inside closets and cubberts, sort of like in the original movie Fahrenheit 451. I fantasize building a separate library annex to the house, but I don't hold my breath. As I've said before there are more books than clothes in my closets.

[gveranon]

Not having space, and not having time to read books I already own, I've been buying fewer books recently. I tell myself to hold off purchasing this or that book until I'm living in a larger place. But rent is rising fast in the town where I live, so when will I ever be living in a larger place? Save for retirement or live in a larger place--that's a stark either/or.

In the meantime, I occasionally feel compelled to buy this or that particular book for true hoarding purpose. I spot a book that I think I might want in the future--no time to read it now, but it's out of print and used copies are scarce, so naturally I must buy a copy immediately. Or I see a new book that I might want in my future of fantasied leisure, and it's the kind of book that will likely go out of print and never be reprinted; obviously buying it now is the only sensible thing to do.

An example of the former: I really enjoyed William S. Wilson's collection Why I Don't Write Like Franz Kafka, and I saw that he had published one novel, long out of print, called Birthplace: Moving Into Nearness. A few used copies were still available at reasonable price. Snagged it.

An example of the latter: I was enticed by rave reviews of the recently published Questioning Minds: The Letters of Guy Davenport and Hugh Kenner, but I wondered if I'd ever find time to read this trove. So I was going to pass on it for now. But then I realized: this looks like the kind of thing (boxed, two-volume set) that may never be reprinted and that will shortly be unavailable except for expensive used copies. I was already half-regretting not buying Arno Schmidt's massive typescript-novel Bottom's Dream when I had the chance. So... I received the Davenport/Kenner boxed set yesterday, two oversized, 1,000-page volumes of fine print, extensively footnoted and indexed. Incredible. Where am I going to put it and when am I going to read it?

The realities of future book (un)availability make this sort of hoarding necessary, right?