Who can tell me...

[dolorous_ett]

... a way to stop buying books?

Books have long since overflowed out of my bookshelves and established colonies on the floor of my flat. While all the piles of books are neat and not particularly unsightly, I have done a quick count, and I currently have 7 piles, all well over a foot in height.

And yet this afternoon, while searching for a birthday present for a friend, I treated myself to two more new books. Despite the fact that I have several very nice books waiting to be read at home, plenty of other books that are well worth a read and two busy weeks of teaching before the end of term...

I can't carry on like this. It's not fair on me, it's not fair on my bank balance and it's not fair on the books - they deserve to be read and cherished, not stored in piles. But how can I stop? New books are nice, and temptation is everywhere. There are at least three second-hand bookshops withing five minutes' walk of my flat.

My F-list seem fantastic at helping answer questions, no matter how abstruse (see last entry). So I thought I'd try my luck again. It's getting crazy in here.

Any advice, up to and including the use of electrodes, gratefully received.

Comments

This One I Cannot Help With.

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

Mine are stacked three and four deep per shelf, let alone those stacked on chairs, the floor, and various desks and tables.

Re: This One I Cannot Help With.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I imagine you have a wonderful book collection - everything from Confucius to the right way to cure a ham. That would be a sight worth seeing, I'm sure. All that encyclopedic knowledge had to come from somewhere, after all.

[zoepaleologa.livejournal.com]

SHELVES are what you need. go to your local DIY, purchase some adjustable brackets and the appropriate lenghts of MDF. Easy.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

SHELVES are what you need.

A good point - and there is a bit of scope for that.

Unfortunately, I live in a small flat, and there is also a distinct shortage of WALLS.

[maexle.livejournal.com]

That means: Very high shelves. ;-)

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

You're right, of course. Trouble is, I'm moving out fairly soon, so it's probably not worth the hassle.

Thanks anyway, though.

And your little hedgehog icon is gorgeous!

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

Checklist:
1. Do you have a bokshelf under the window sill?
2. In this narrow space between the window and the corner of the room?
3. What about the are directly above the door?
(Note: all above has been succesfully used, if not by me, than by my friends)

Checklist No. 2
1. Do you have any double copies of books?
2. Take a painfully honest look at randomly chosen shelf: do you see a book there, which you haven't looked into for the last 10/7/5 years?
3. Do you think your local friendly library won't be happier with it?

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Checklist 1:
I don't in all those places... but as I'm going to have to move before so long anything involving hammer and nails is probably out, my landlord being remarkably humourless about holes in walls...

Checklist 2:
This is more workable. I've had to do this regularly for some time. But perhaps it's been long enough to merit another go.

[ignipes.livejournal.com]

Books are wonderful and beautiful and amazing things, and so shiny, too, except when they're not, and then they have character and roughness and are still lovely.

I can't help you in this matter. I have, in fact, run out of walls on which to place new bookshelves in my tiny little home.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Well, at least I know I have another kindred spirit.

I bet your bookshelves are a sight for sore eyes - all those brilliant novels AND exciting things about cataclysmic geological upheavals. Kaboom!

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

Oh goodness. I'm really not going to be helpful in the slightest. I've already overflowed my current bookshelf in the space of three months, and this doesn't count the (literal) walls of books I've left in both my parents' houses. I'm an addict. I admit to it. In my nine months in Cambridge, I acquired about 90 books in my tiny single room, not counting the ones I brought with me in the first place...

Shelves are good. I don't know if anyone in the UK carries collapsible bookshelves, but I've got five of them and they are absolutely wonderful. Of course, if you've got minimal wall space, you could also try tables with shelves underneath, or possibly hanging shelves so they aren't actually showing up on the floor and the wall; just up high.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Collapsible bookshelves might just do it. I'm reluctant to install anything permanent as I'm going to have to move before so long.

And underneath things isn't a bad plan. Hmmm...

[catkind.livejournal.com]

Joining the local lending library helped me a little on that score - at least it cuts down on the "I wonder if I'll like that" type bookbuying. Obviously works best for mainstream, classic or new books. They also have the advantage of selling on books for a negligible price when they've finished with them. Or take up reading obscure philosophical texts from the university library?

Never mind, as vices go, it's a pretty cheap and convenient one :-)

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

The library is really a very good idea. I must do taht.

They also have the advantage of selling on books for a negligible price when they've finished with them.

This isn't a point in their favour right now! Though I've benefited happily from library sales in the past, I've also tended to pick up books I liked very much when I read them in the library, to be sure of instant access at all times...

Never mind, as vices go, it's a pretty cheap and convenient one

There is that. And no-one has yet to suggest that books are carcinogenic...

[swythyv.livejournal.com]

Well, first you need the T-shirt. I remember it from my last science-fiction convention, about twenty years ago. It reads:

I AM A BOOKAHOLIC.
IF YOU ARE A DECENT PERSON,
YOU WILL NOT SELL ME ANY MORE BOOKS.

Then you could set up a transitional plan about carrying out two books for each one you bring in.
But I'd go with the shelves, on general principles. ;D

A few months ago I invited an antiquarian bookseller into my basement, and he took out several dozens of cases as a job lot. Part of it was finally admitting that if I hadn't yet read some of them, I likely would never do so. There's a lot to be said for sending them away to a good home where they'll be loved and looked after. And empty shelves can be a glorious sight. ;D

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I must get that T-shirt!

And I don't think most of my books are really of interest to an antiquarian bookseller - just second hand, not ancient.

The two-out-one-in strategy, however, is something I could do. And should.

[krisomniac.livejournal.com]

If you figure it out, won't you show me how?

I know. I have a backlog, and there are STILL lots of books I'm itching to buy. I've tried not bringing my credit card with me to barnes and noble. But then I tend to hold stuff and come back to buy. Agh!

In Oz, what worked for me was (1) only buy from used bookstores and (2) sell back almost everything because I couldn't carry it on the airplane back to the states. I dunno.

Good luck.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Being abroad helps in a way - especially if the local language is not the same as your own. On the other hand, you tend to cling pathologically to any books you've got already, and compulsively buy anything that looks OK - who knows when you'll see it again?

Book colonies!!

[aerama.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm no help either. Overflow abounds in our house. I have shelves that are deep enough to stack several-deep behind the first row - if the back-books are facing out versus lined up properly - but I still have to have bookends on the top of the bookcases (also two-deep). And a small select pile next to my side of the bed. And a dresser with two doors at the top that also holds books, and I'm almost sure it wasn't meant to do so. AND a couple shelves we put up that used to hold dust-gathering candles and things and now hold books. So...yeah. Turn any surface into a bookshelf, it's fun.

I just now came back from a bookstore, actually, that I didn't want to go to because I knew I'd end up buying books. My husband went to get a CD (that this bookstore also fiendishly sells). I decided I would "just browse" a few sections...oops.

And yet, on the whole, it feels so good to get books, doesn't it? Look on it as therapy. So your bank balance suffers - what's money for, then? And your books know they are cherished. YOU bought them, after all.

I guess all you can do is just not carry enough money to get more than you bargained for.

Re: Book colonies!!

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I bet you've got a brilliant house! It sounds lovely - all those books... mmm... books....

Re: Book colonies!!

[aerama.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I've unwittingly created the opposite effect! *back, back!*
Well, I couldn't help much anyway.

Come on in. You can gaze at them and they will gaze at you, and everyone will be happy.

We fully intend to have a library in our next house, the dream kind that is two stories high, with a balcony and a rolling ladder, and windowed alcoves to curl up in...
...darn it all.

I can! (erm)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

A common problem, but one with a simple if not easy cure: don't go in to bookshops. It is the only way. You may go into shops that sell new books as long as you are not carrying any money, but not into second-hand ones (because the new books will still be there Next Time, but the second-hand ones won’t, so you risk running back home/to the office to collect your purse before That Book leaves with someone else). Don’t go into bookshops. Buy books for other people via Amazon (or from new bookshops with £7.99 exactly in your purse). Only look at abebooks.co.uk for specific things. Only go into bookshops having accepted that you will buy something once in there. Understand that this is how things must be for the rest of your life.

Alternatively, there is method (2). For every new book you buy, you must read two from the piles on the floor. It won’t resolve the problem completely, but it should help a bit.

Re: I can! (erm)

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Method (1) might actually be more painful than electrodes! But it might have to be the answer if I don't clean up my act.

Method (2), on the other hand, strikes me as something I should apply myself to. I do know for a fact that a lot of my books are once-only jobs - I should read them and then send them to Oxfam.

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

I resolved - partially - the problem of not exactly books, but photocopies of different scientific stuff, photocopies which overflow even more than proper books do. I got myself a scanner and although it takes longer (but you can do something else at the same time) I put them down in the electronic version. Saves lots of space.
And I don't mind too much reading from the screen.

Local library: your best friend (spurious remark, I know).

Bottom line: don't go anywhere near booksops, as Nineveh said. But stay also away from Amazon and Ebay. Stick to L_J :)

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Scanners are good for photos too. I've resisted so far because I like the act of looking at photos, but friends swear like it.

Curiously, I've never been particularly tempted by Amazon or Ebay. One thing I can feel good about, anyway!