Tuesday, January 27, 2009

I have too many books

No I don't. I just have my own personal library - of several 100 books. A friend of one of my ex-roommates had come to visit and asked him "How many of them has she read?"

His answer was correct - "All of them, some of them multiple times."

I'm a word junkie. I love to read; I'm not quite so fond of writing, but I enjoy it. I absolutely ADORE new vocabulary.

One of the downsides of this addiction is that I've now got so many books that I can't remember all of them. Walk into a bookshop and see something "interesting" by a favorite author and not sure if it is on my shelf or not. Aggravating.

So I have begun to take stock - I'm starting a "Card Catalog" spreadsheet. Author, title, soft or hardcover, location in the house (I have 5 bookshelves) and genre. So far I've listed over 100 books and have only just scratched the surface, so to speak. This is going to be a long haul. In the end, however, I'll be able to shop for books with confidence, because I'll know what I already have and what is new fodder for my library.

Mom used to jump my case about having too many books. Why didn't I get rid of some of them, she'd ask.

Simple. I can't get rid of ANY of them because invariably when I've taken a batch of books to the used book store, within a week I'm awake and insomniac at 2:00 a.m. and remembering 1/3 of a book plot and need to be able to read THAT book to get back to sleep. I am not crazy.

So I have a question from anyone who may read this - do you know of any good (cheap) software programs that handle this database function specifically for home/personal libraries/book collections?

Inquiring mice want to know.

4 comments:

Shade said...

Nope don't know of any software that does, but I'd love to know if someone does as I have the same problem!

I'd almost go as far as calling myself a readaholic! About a book an evening at the moment (1.5" paperbacks mostly) and, due to only having a limited amount of space because of sharing a house, I've run out of bookshelf space and they're piling up in any space I have. I keep taking some to store at my parents house whenever I go and visit but the bookshelves in my room there are already double or triple-stacked so I'm running out of space there too.

I also get asked why I have so many and why can't I get rid of them! So we're not crazy, it's everyone else that is.

Anonymous said...

Oh wow, Sewmouse, I could have written this very post. Seriously. The bit about your mother asking you why you weren't getting rid of books? OMG, why would you?! I read mine multiple times too, and I've got one bookcaseful of my absolute favourites which I've read at least five times over about 25 years. And I hope to keep them for the rest of my life and read them many more times.

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who reads certain books over and over again, because sometimes I am made to feel a freak over this. I always thought it made perfect sense - if you love a particular book, keep it, and re-read it every three or four years. Or five; or two. Whatever. Doesn't matter.

Here's to books! Our constant friends.f

Dr. Know said...

If you have Microsoft Access I can give you a DVD cataloging database program that could also track books. It's basic, but allows a cover photo and search by title. I wrote it to track, of all things, movies. Nothing special and if you can code in VBA, you could enhance it.

FWIW

enigma4ever said...

wow....I don't know of such a system...but I would love it...

I love having a computer, I can read all kinds of things any hour of the day...I like you am indeed a word addict....I never thought about it until I read this post...


toooo funny...

keep reading....

lol...