Well, now that we know how everyone treats their books, and what their oldest book is, let us into the rest of the library. How do you keep your books, how many do you have, do you have any collections? Glass fronted oak bookcases, milk crates and boards - which is your style?

I have two very nice book cases in the living room, One rigged up bookcase in the living room, one not so nice book case in the front room and one rigged up bookcase in the bedroom. And, I have boxes and plastic containers of books in the basement.

I don't think I could even begin to tell anyone how many books I have, it's probably past 500 by now.

My collection is pretty sad. I have maybe 20 or 30 first editions from different authors. That's my big thing, first editions.

I have two large solid cherry wood bookcases in the living room, and I have another large bookcase in the study with a natural wood finish. All of my books are arranged neatly on the shelves according to genre. I've never counted my books, though, but I probably have about 200.

I envy your organizational skills, littlewoman2. I used to try and keep my books cataloged by genre and author, but I just don't have the time any more. Now, I just settle for putting them on the shelves as neatly as possible.

I'm one of those obsessively neat people, IndieQueen. It really irks me if one of my books is even out of place! But I'm like that about everything in my house. Some think me strange, but I'm just neat, clean, and organized, a trait that goes back to my childhood.

When I moved home 6 years ago I had 54 boxes of books. I have a room full of bookshelves (and a piano) and although I started by having them arranged in categories, for example all my Penguin editions together, all my Livres de Poche etc, the system has descended over the years into a pretty chaotic and haphazard mess. But I can find anything you ask for in about two minutes. It might take you a little longer - but I can guarantee that you'd enjoy the browse!

Just two nice bookcases in my room which keeps all my audio books and books to hand!

This may sound like a lot - but remember, there are four of us, and we are all heavy book users.
My kids both have bookcases in their rooms which hold their personal books. My daughter has about 200, my son about 50 (she reads Babysitter's club and RL Stine, he reads sword and sorcery novels that run to 600+ pages, which accounts for the difference). Then there is a bookcase in the playroom which holds my old childhood books that neither of them wanted, a 1930's set of WonderBooks, and assorted Whitman Abridged Classics, Nancy Drews, etc. Also about 8 feet of old S&SF and Ellery Queen magazines.
In the living room we have simple shelves full of about 1500 paperbacks, covering all of one wall. On the shelf that holds TV, VCR, etc, there are shelves for about 80 books - a nice red bound Mark Twain set, atlases, reference books from the 20s and 30s. Also all the Hardy Boys in the brown jackets.
Beside the arch into the dining room there is a tall narrow shelf that holds reference books, bird books, that sort of thing, (maybe 100 volumes all told) with a matching shelf on the other side of the arch holding my cookbooks, and a pretty big collection of local and regional history that used to belong to my husband's father. On top of these shelves live my husband's good set of Mark Twain, and on the other, my Kipling collection.
In the dining room is a bookcase holding our old books, my husband's Jack London collection, and the hardcover fiction, maybe about 250 books all told.
A big cardboard box seeems to have taken root beside my husband's chair, holding about 50 old Perry Mason paperbacks that he got for 10 cents a piece and now expects me to read.
Beside the computer we keep a big dictionary, a bunch of Tolkien books and references that I use for editing, and about two feet of whatever my husband is working on.
Boxes of books the kids have grown out of but want to save for their own kids in the basement.
There are library books on every flat surface except the floor, and some even there.
We had a fire about ten years ago, which (thankfully) was confined to the basement. Everything in the house had to go away for special cleaning to get the smoke out. The disaster services people brought a bunch of boxes with them, to pack the books, as they had been told we had a lot. They used all of them, AND all the available boxes from the town's three liquor stores. We've gotten rid of a lot since then.

Agony, your house sounds a lot like mine. The topic is "Describe your library". Well, to do that, I have to say my library is my house.

In the study/library, we have built in bookshelves, wall to wall, floor to ceiling. The books are mostly non-fiction and reference books and are arranged by subject and size. There are quite a lot of medical books which I need for my work.

In the living/lounge room, we have four large wall units along one wall (almost wall to wall, floor to ceiling), full of books, videos, DVDs and CDs. The books are mostly my Agatha Christie collection, sets of classics and some foreign language books.

In the kitchen/dining room, I have a large bookcase which houses all my recipe books, gardening books and petcare books.

In my sewing room, I have a large bookcase which houses all my craft and sewing books.

In his hobby room, Maynooth has an extensive collection of videos and books, mostly James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, winemaking and magic books (that is, magic as in tricks, not the occult).

In our bedroom, I have a large bookcase which houses our favourite fiction (mostly John Mortimer, Ken Follett, Wilbur Smith, John Grisham, Jeffrey Deaver, Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell, Ruth Rendell, Bill Bryson, Jeffrey Archer - to name but a few) and our collection of National Geographics.

Our daughter has a small bookcase in her own bedroom and another in the study/library with all her books. She reads a lot too and has a wide variety of books. As well as using her bookshelves for storage, she uses the floor, the windowsill, under the bed, on the chair, etc. I've given up trying to get her to keep her room tidy. Don't ask about what she does with her school books.

Last, but not least, both bathrooms have a magazine rack beside the loo with a selection of magazines and trivia books for one's amusement whilst otherwise occupied.

I have no idea how many books I have. I'm afraid to try to inventory them. We collect books from all over the place, new and old, and every year I donate loads of boxes of them to the school for the school fete because we just don't have enough room. But it doesn't seem to make much difference to the overall number of books in the house.

I only know that I will never move house as I couldn't face the gigantic chore of packing them all up.

Every room in my flat except the kitchen (maybe) has books in it. Fifteen bookshelves of various sizes, not all used as efficiently as they should be. Piles of books around the computer. Piles of books on every table, some portions of the floor, in boxes, crates and bags. Needs organizing, but every time I start, I end up reading one of the books instead.

I tend to borrow books more than I buy them but most of the books I do have on my shelf, are from when I was 5 or younger upto now.

My bookshelf is on top of my desk (they came combined) and I categorise my fiction books by author's surname. The non-fiction books are stored by height, smallest on the left to the tallest on the right.

Non-fiction books: 40. Fiction books: 40
So I have 80 all up.

At home I have 2 book cases in my bedroom, one tall thin one and one shorter but quite wide. Both are absolutely full so now I also have books stacked up on the desk. A lot of my books from when I was really young (about 7 years old) are in crates in the spare room. On my bookcases are all the books I read as a teenager and some more 'grown up' books.
I also have other books that I brought to university with me. I've got a bedside table with a drawer at the top and a big space underneath. The space is where some of my boos live, and the ones that didn't fit are on a little shelving unit I have in the corner.
I have no idea how many books I have. There's a whole shelf of Point Horrors from when I used to collect them, quite a few Sweet Valley & Babysitter's Club books and another shelf full of Chalet School books, most of which my grandma gave me. They're from when her kids were little, but they didn't want them when they left home and I used to read them at my Grandma's house so she said I could have them. Then I have about 20 books written in German which I bought when I lived there. Most of them are children's books because they were easier for me to understand, but I do have Terry Pratchett's 'Pyramids' in German (my boyfriedn was very impressed that I was able to understand that one)

Oh, and I almost forgot. I have 3 boxes of Agatha Christie books. They used to be my stepmum's and my dad was having a clearout of books recently to make more room. I'm the only one that reads the Agath Christie's now, and he asked me if I wanted them kept. I said yes of course, so now they're in boxes and my dad says he'll keep them at home for me until I finish university and get a house of my own.

Impressive Beee! I used to have the full set of Chalet School books until I donated them to my local library and also I have got lots of Agatha Christie audio tapes and Cds, as well as a few books too!

Another one who lives in a library here, I have four rooms and each has as many bookshelves as it can take. The collection spans my life, and though it's not totally organised into themes (partly as certain books can only fit on certain shelves regardless of their subjects) the categories are as follows:

Supernatural: Read and unread
Reference (used for the Ask Funtrivia questions I don't actually know the answers to )
Law (I studied and taught it)
Counselling, psychology and medical (My lifetime interests, and I am a counsellor)
Houses and interior design: I have maybe 50 featuring the best of the 1970s and 80s
The rest is a mixture of humour, children's books, a few novels I read occasionally, cars, science, geology, electronics, nature and languages. I could quite easily open it to the public for reference as it's a pretty comprehensive selection of the subjects in it, and could form quite a good social club if I did!

My dream is to one day have a proper library. Like the ones I've seen in old houses and castles. With bookcases all around the walls and comfortable seats and things. I don't think I'll ever have a house with a room as big as some of the libraries I've seen in castle though!

~*Bee*~

I did a rough count of my books when I moved house about seven months ago: I think I counted about 1,500 hardbacks and 1,000 paperbacks. They’ve been accumulated over 45 years or so since my mid-teens: I find it hard to throw a book away, even if I know I’ll never look into it again.

My bookcases are pretty ordinary open-fronted units. They’re about 6ft 6 in (say 2 metres) high and the total length is about 25 feet (a little over 7.5 metres). I haven’t got a lot of room for storage in a small flat, so a lot of shelves have two rows of books on them.

The main areas of interest are history (particularly social history), music (particularly opera), foreign languages and humour. There’s a separate bookcase for books from the Folio Society (a slightly upmarket British book club with a remarkably eclectic catalogue).

Quote:

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My dream is to one day have a proper library. Like the ones I've seen in old houses and castles.

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Yes, I like to imagine sitting in one of those libraries in a leather armchair with a generous measure of malt whisky at my side and chuckling over a first edition of Tom Jones or Pickwick Papers. Still, at least I’ve got the armchair and the whisky (sip! sip!) , even if the novels are mainly paperbacks and the room is also cluttered with all sorts of junk. When I visit country houses, although I’m sure that the books have often been bought by the yard to fill the shelves, I’m always interested to see what they have on the shelves.

The book-case I have now is a small one that was given to me by my boss. Iam a voracious seeker after knowledge over a wide range of topics, and Iam forever finding new, informative volumes. My ever expanding library is therefore going to need a bigger home.

My bookshelf is a complete mess. Kellermans nudge Pratchetts,King shares space with 'Little Women',scifi can be found alongside true crime. I like it this way. I can browse and pick a book from nearly any genre from one shelf. My hubby made my bookcase.It stands about 7 feet tall, is about 3 feet wide, and I can fit paperbacks 3 deep.

I've a designated library downstairs (a small bedroom) with four wooden open face bookcases (a little below ceiling height) and a couch/pull-out bed (it also doubles as a guest bedroom). I organize by category (religion, politics, history, guns & weaponry, military & war, classics, biology, etc.). Within the categories I organize the books loosely by author, but I also have this thing about needing the books to be arranged in descending order by height, so sometimes I mix authors on a row. Appearance trumps organization. I also have some magazine files on one of the shelves, where I keep old copies of news magazines, Consumer Reports, First Things, etc.

Upstairs I keep my Bibles and Bible references in one row of a bookcase in the living room, which otherwise houses DVDs, CDs, games, my daughter's books and some of her toys. In the foyer I have a fancier bookcase (dark wood) that contains three sets: my Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedias, my Masterplots, and my leather bound Agatha Christies (inherited--I've only read one so far). In my study (which is attached to my bedroom) I have two cheap wood bookcases attached to the wall. There I keep the reference books I need for editing and writing: a dictionary, a thesaurus, the Chicago Manual of Style, MLA, grammar books, Writer's Market, Poet's Market, etc. Also on these bookcases are my husband's many popular fiction paperback books.

I have no idea how many books we have total. Maybe 800? If we ever have to move ourselves, I'm having a book sale.

Oh, have you a Funk and Wagnell's? I had to get rid of mine (along with a lot of other books) when we got our computer (our house is so small that it is completely FULL; if we buy anything new, we must get rid of something old) Mine was from 1955 (I think) - completely useless when it came to any newish information, but such a nice nostalgic resource for looking up dates and so on. I used it when I was a kid.

I'm so pleased to learn that I'm not the only book hoarder. After culling my collection numerous times over the years, I still have over 2,000 books that I can't or won't part with (my family members think I'm nuts.) I have at least one bookshelf in every room (including the bathrooms.)

All of my bookshelves are full so when I get a new book, something else will have to go! This is how I'm controlling my collecting habits lately, so naturally I've become more selective about what I buy. Since I rarely read a novel more than once I no longer buy them. I've limited my fiction collection to one bookcase containing works by my favorite authors, classics, and my treasured vintage sci fi paperbacks. Any other fiction reading I do is from the public library.

The rest of my books are non-fiction, mostly art instruction, art history, pattern and design, photography, world history, physics, mathematics, cultural studies, knitting, quilting, sewing, beadwork, historical costume, oh, I could go on and on... I guess the only categories I wouldn't have anything on would be sports, war, or transportation.

I try to use my public library as much as possible now. My public library is networked electronically with dozens of other area libraries and I can order books online as easily as I could on Amazon.com., and have them delivered to my local branch. Since they implemented this system a few years ago, I now only buy the books that break my heart to have to return to the library!

I am trying to think back on all the books we started out with. Together, my husband and I had two 12 ft long floor to ceiling contraptions -"bookshelving" might be too formal a term here-along with several small actual bookshelves in various corners.Mostly college texts, art books, art history, travel, celtic- anything -we- could- find, Books about how to ready one's work for print, graphic design, a great many household how -to books, the occasional L'mour western [he loved those- I lean more toward Anne Tyler] When I wanted a spiritual education and a good laugh I would always read a C S Lewis allegory-The Great Divorce or The Screwtape Letters. There doesn't seem to be a grand design to any of this collection. Just those things we loved and which offered comfort, wisdom and a look outside our sometimes hermit-like selves.

Well, Books and me have a volatile relationship - I usually play safe with them. Usually the books are kept in some visible corner, so that my mom or sister sees them and places them in the racks. Well, if they don't, one lucky rag picker gets a bonus.

My library is quite exhaustive (if you consider the study material like Kotler, Samuelson's etc).

I have around 50 of these management books, so my library has

Fiction (Hard Core and Involuntary reading material): 50 [See above]
Comics : 20-30
Ilustrated Fiction (Soft): 12-24

hi all
well, let's see about 5 libraries--before that had had about another 20 libraries ago--, i had a 36 foot by 28 foot building that i devoted to my collections of science/art/travel items and books (had a total of 39 feet of science-fiction for example) and similar number of feet for other areas (science--usually split into the usual sub-categories), english (especially vocabulary and origins and related--was always fascinated by the differences between words like sleet, hail, slush and the like, unfortunately, i have forgotten what i learned from the inupiat about the fabled differences in words for snow--drat!) fiction (other than sci-fi, and related) by authors, good place to include jokes (i have never been fond of practical jokes because that seemed to me to be overtly condescending something i have never appreciated --i had no trouble with hearing [but rarely telling]ethnic and x-rated jokes (depending on if still in usn or not, otherwise had to be handled very discreetly) education/psychology (includes counseling, guidance and most other areas of psychology--just look at courses being taught in that department/history my major and minors for my doctorate; social sciences (started out as a cultural anthropologist (chose this area because it in a way covered everything--i had wanted to be a generalist but dug post-holes here and there), went to american civilization, then pre-law and law, then education for real, had a lot of books in all the questions of philosophy and as many of the religious texts of the world as i could find), and, of course, adjoining the above building was my 5 room house, where one could even find books in my refrigerator (no, i didn't really put the super "hot" books there). each time i got a new position (and i regarded teaching (as good as being in the usn) as an opportunity to see the world and get paid for it so i moved quite a lot, not too good for one's recommendations but great when teaching jobs were plentiful--which, alas, they weren't always. when i was a prof, i ALWAYS brought a box of books that i had found to be of potential use in whatever lecture/demonstration i was about to teach by which i mean i always had prepared about 5 to 10 hours for each actual class hour--in almost every class i ever had or have, i have always come prepared to teach the class whether or not i was the teacher but just kept my research in the day's topic to myself
i am sure that i have forgotten (ok, here's an area i forgot and i tried to acquire a lot of these--area was art that was the area of my wife--saw her through two bachelor degrees in art and one master of fine arts--which in the case of a practicing (spelling?) artist that is the equivalent of a doctorate. painting was an interest of mine but not a talent. oh my gosh, how could i forget classical music--i had tons of books on this along with tons of scores (piano music? then i wanted it--sonatas, bach, piano concerti, and misc. other)
will quit with that. i have tended to pack rattism (no wonder ratmum joined my team?) and i have i mentioned i will very soon be giving away some of this last collection because will be moving into a 13 feet by 13 feet room in the veterans home think if YOU had to do that?!
goodhealthpeacelovejoy
drbob

My library was designed into my new house. It's 15X30 feet and has three sets of library shelves plus some odd bookcases (some of them are VERY odd). I have 3000+ books. All the read ones are cataloged into a master MS Access list with author, title, genre, comments, published date, etc.

There are two bookshelves in the living rooms with the encyclopedias and other reference books and three shelves in the bedroom for my unread books. There's also cabinets and counterspace at the back which is where I do (and store) my jigsaw puzzles.

I like mysteries and science fiction but there are a ton of other books as well (photography, textbooks, kids books, cookbooks, regional stuff, etc. etc.)

Just call me 'Booknut' and you'd be about right! Need I say that my library is my favorite room in my house?