Describe your non-RPG book collection

Elodan · Jun 23, 2013

Hi,

I was going through my books today and that made me wonder what others keep on their shelves.

I generally have 200 - 400 books on my shelves at any one time. The majority are science fiction and fantasy (including urban fantasy) with a small subset of history books like 1776 and John Adams. I also have about 50 - 100 trade comics (mostly DC with some Spider-man and Avengers).

I tend to only keep books that I really like on the shelves. At least a couple of times a year, I work through my bookshelves and purge. I try and be realistic about what I really will read again. Those that don't make the cut are offered to friends, then offered to the used bookstores and finally donated.

Please share your book habits.

Thanks.

-Tom

Crothian · Jun 23, 2013

I have under a hundred novels. I read lots of books but I use the Library for most I read. I have a single bookcase of books with some series like Dresden Files and Thieves' World and some stand alone like by first edition Princess Bride.

Dannyalcatraz · Jun 23, 2013

I have hundreds of novels- fantasy, sci-fi, horror and mystery, mainly- plus books on law, philosophy, chaos theory, economics, astronomy, icthyology & malacology, art/art history, weapons encyclopedias, and other stuff...

TarionzCousin · Jun 23, 2013

I have a couple thousand books. Probably half are fantasy/science fiction. A quarter are non-fiction, with the largest percentage of that being historical books. The rest are split between psychology, contemporary fiction, mystery, and other stuff.

I don't have the room space nor the shelf space to have them all on display. Currently about half are in boxes in the garage.

Dannyalcatraz · Jun 23, 2013

As an example, I have a hallway lined with a custom bookcase- here's about a 4' section of it:

There's at least another 20' worth of that. In addition, there's another 2 short freestanding bookcases of similar size in other parts of the house, and a big 7' tall one in my bedroom.

Gilladian · Jun 23, 2013

My husband and I are moving soon, combining households with my mother. We've already donated over 10 boxes of paperbacks to the library sale, or taken them to our nephew to look at; he likes military SF. I've mostly gotten rid of my historical romances, a lot of things we've converted to ebook format, and second copies of many series - it's so HARD not to buy another copy of a volume in a long series!

Mostly we're keeping much loved series, non-fiction (mostly historical and some popular science), and some older stuff that's just not available in ebook format. I think we'll probably end up with about 3 7' tall shelf units full. I'm keeping my almost-complete paperback collection of Andre Nortons, because you can't get them in e-book!

ggroy · Jun 23, 2013

Mostly engineering and advanced mathematics type books. Some technical computer books.

A few years ago, I picked up a large number of older Star Trek novels (ie. published before 1999) from several book fairs.

Umbran · Jun 23, 2013

So, let's see...

Librarything tells me that together, my wife and I have over 1100 books. Those are pretty much all science fiction and fantasy. They're mostly paperbacks, with a smallish fraction of hardcovers.

After that, I think in terms of 6'x3' bookshelves, as we haven't put them into Librarything. There's one such bookcase of cookbooks (and cooking magazines). One (severely overflowing) of gaming books. Two more of, well, SCIENCE! - mostly textbooks, but a good chunk of popular-science stuff as well.

Jhaelen · Jun 24, 2013

I own a couple more than 1000 books. Most of them are Sci-Fi novels, followed by Fantasy novels and RPG material. The rest are either classics of world literature or non-fiction.
Apart from that I also own about 800 penny novels that are stored in the attic.
So far, I've never sold any books but I may soon have to due to space restrictions. Since I bought a Kindle, I try to buy everything in eBook format.

Phototoxin · Jun 24, 2013

I've culled since I don't read as much now- I really have lots of Jeffrey Deaver and Lee Child books. all the Artemis Fowl and my Wife's harry potter books. The odd book on painting, poetry and words (dictionary of prose an phrase) and reference books on guns and swords. Oh an a lot of science tomes - genetics, chemistry, forensic DNA typing etc. Sherlock holmes and HP Lovecraft collections and a few warhammer/40k novels
Most of the other 9zillion books are my wifes. She's a normal sized giant dire bookworm of reading +9