>>>>>>I always wanted a study so when we decided to buy a house we came across this house with the huge game room and 4 bedrooms, etc. The builder needed to unload the house and offered it to us for several thousand less than my appraiser valued it at. I finally had place to put all my books, etc in one place.
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>>>>>>We also had a small formal dining room that I converted to a music room and put my keyboard, piano, guitars, banjo etc into. My sons also moved their different instruments into it as well.
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>>>>>>I started off with SciFi and have branched into several different types of fantasy since then. I like the genre because it doesn't always go the way you are thinking it will.
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>>>>>>Tim
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>>>>>I use the other arrangement. Bookcases all over the house, books piled on every flat surface including three and four foot high piles against the walls on hallway floors, and boxes piled up in the basement. There are only two real problems with this arrangement. First, I can't find anything, and secondly, I have four cats, so I have to keep re-piling the books.
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>>>>You sound like the weird old woman who lives uop the road from us: one of those people who have to squeeze through the door cos the hall's piled high with paper, and her garden is like a rubbish tip. She insists she's just collecting alu cans for charity (which she does) and won't even recognoise that the rest is an eyesore :-)
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>>>Nono. The outside is fine. In fact, last summer, I came home one day to find an envelope in my mailbox from my ward councillor. I almost threw it out figuring it was more self praising political junk, but because it was in a letter size manilla envelope, I thought maybe it was something I could use, like a calendar. Anyway, imagine my surprise when I opened it and found a parchment certificate signed by the councillor naming me as having one of the nicest gardens in the ward. I had no idea that they do drive-bys. I proudly filed it in a drawer. I'm sure it must still be there.
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>>No, I wasn't saying your garden was a tip - I was just filling in some interesting detail about this woman - but I've seen her squeezing past the piles of paper in her hall, at the front door. You did say you have 4' high piles in the hall, and 4 cats! The thing is - what's the point? They'll just be piles for someone to clear out when you croak, and serve no purpose other than to clutter up your life. And you said: "...There are only two real problems with this arrangement". ONLY 2!?
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>Well, it's the upstairs hallway where they get piled, not by the front door. And it's only books, not other paper products. Though, I have to admit you're right in questioning my assertion of only 2 problems. There is at least one more - dust. ;)
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>Finally, no, they don't clutter up my life, they envelope it in warmth and memories. They are old friends, reminding me not only of their content, but also of who and where I was when I was reading them the first time. And to say they will never be read again is not necessarily correct. You may read a book only once, but others (myself included) may well read a book many more times than that. I've read one particular book at least 14 times (maybe 15 - I've lost count). Another, I've read 3 times, and there are others I've read twice.
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>A lot of this goes back to upbringing. I was raised surrounded by books, and my brother and I seem to have inherited the 'book gathering' gene.


My book collection was completely out of control. When I moved here two years ago one of the biggest parts of the move was the 40 or 50 boxes of books, most of which had been sitting in one basement or another for years. At this point it is down to maybe 10 boxes or so, consisting of 1) those that haven't been read and might be; 2) technical books that aren't out of date; 3) ones I might reread; and 4) particular favorites I can't bear to part with.

I'm not sure which books I have read most often. "The World According To Garp", "The Catcher in the Rye", and "Crime and Punishment" all have to be up there.