Book Hoarding

I couldn’t pass up reading an article on Lithub of 10 Famous Book Hoarders. Have you read it? While I was surprised to read that Karl Lagerfeld has a collection of more than 300,000 books, I think what was more surprising was to see Oprah’s collection is only 1,500. I always imagined that Oprah’s collection would be huge.

In the article some celebrities had collections of 400 books while the largest were in the thousands and it just made me think about some of the collections. Some people seem to collect books on subjects that are near and dear to them but some I wonder if it’s just for the aesthetics. And, while books are beautiful, I hoard them because I love to read.

I think most of us collect books because we are bookworms. When I was in my 20s I couldn’t imagine getting rid of any books and started amassing quite a lot. Over the years, I’ve written about how that has significantly changed for me. I trade books with friends, give away books to the library and sometimes I take books to Half Price Books to sell only to use the money to purchase more new books.

When I buy books, I buy them because I fully intend to read them. Granted, a lot of these have become shelf-sitters but that’s why I do cull the stacks every once in a while because I know my reading tastes change. Still I’m always hopeful that I will eventually get to all of those books on my shelves.

My house has a lot of books. My husband’s office has a full wall of shelves and most of the shelves are filled with his books. And, of course my studio/library also has a full wall of shelves. My shelves are double-stacked and have now spilled over onto the floor. I don’t know how many books I have but last time I counted my collection was at a little over 1,000 books.

Do you consider yourself a collector? How many books do you have and/or do you keep books?

Have a wonderful weekend! I think I will spend some time with my books and maybe try not to add more books to the shelves this weekend. Haha.

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