Comments on: Cutting my losses

By: Pauline Kanipe

Pauline Kanipe — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:32:11 +0000

I didn’t think anyone else but me had eleven book cases full plus boxes in the attic. Forty or so years ago, I threw away about one hundred books when I made a move. Within a year I had bought them again. That was before the days of fantasy fiction. When I was twelve and reading all the sci fi in the library the librarian wasn’t sure my mother wanted me to read all that stuff. (She didn’t: she thought I should be chasing boys, but my father was all for it).
Recently I’ve been fearing that Mercedes Lackey could never write fast enough for me to get new books, so whenever I find a new author or series Like Crosspointe, I’m ecstatic. My daughter is dreading having to settle my estate one day. Maybe I should weed too.

By: Bran fan

Bran fan — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:11:46 +0000

Have you tried bookcrossing? It’s the most fun you can have with your old books! It’s free to join and great karma. You can sign up at their website.

By: Dan Ronco

Dan Ronco — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:50:19 +0000

I built a bigger house. Didn’t throw out a book. That was seven years ago, and my shelves are bulging again. Time to check the real estate section.

By: Martin Wisse

Martin Wisse — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 11:39:35 +0000

A colleague of my wife’s gave us about 30 boxes of older F&SF [...] and in pure self defense I’ve gotten in the habit of giving a new book 10-30 pages. If I don’t like it by then, I’m probably not going to, and out it goes.

For some of those old sf novels, reading thirty pages means you’re already halfway through them, so you might as well read on…

Meanwhile I got roughly 11/2 bookcase of unread sf/fantasy paperbacks in the bedroom and still nothing to read.

I’m a book packrat because I remember what it was to be bored on a sunday afternoon with nothing in the house unread, nothing on telly and no internet yet.

By: Jessica

Jessica — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:36:59 +0000

My TBR trys to stay located on a single shelf, but that’s mostly because anything I keep (or leave rather) at my mom’s house is still unread. So, mostly I have another house for my TBRs.

Most of Mom’s TBRs have been packed around with us for several years. I know lots of titles by assosciation with their authors because for most of my life I’ve had to dust them once every year-and-a-half or so when we’ve moved and I’ve packed them into boxes.

I’m mostly fond of the lend them permanently to a friend idea though.

By: Marie Brennan

Marie Brennan — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:33:20 +0000

And just saying that give me a cold shiver down my author spine.

Why? I mean, if you were judging them based on the first para, okay, that’s a bit extreme. But if in thirty or fifty pages or whatever, the book fails to interest you, then I think that’s fair. It’s enough to tell you whether the subject matter is to your taste, whether the author can string together a coherent sentence, and many other things that I think are fair predictors of how you’ll feel about the rest of the book. Sure, every so often there’s one where you would have liked it if you read the whole thing, but that’s rare.

And from my standpoint as a writer, if I can’t get my story started in an interesting fashion in the first thirty pages, then that’s my fault. Hoping the reader will stay with me until page 150, when my story “gets good,” is unreasonable.

By: Cameron Lowe

Cameron Lowe — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:58:14 +0000

I used to donate my excess books to the local library until I found out that their building is one step from being condemne. I’d rather be bogged down in excess books than have them get waterlogged in a sinking building.

Does anyone know if there’s a national Friends of the Library or similar organization that accepts used books and donates them to libraries? I’d willingly pay the huge postage fee if I knew my books were going to libraries instead of someone’s dumpster.

By: Kelly McCullough

Kelly McCullough — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:29:55 +0000

I’ve gotten quite brutal about it. The move before the last one we got rid of several hundred pounds of books rather than move them. Since then, I’ve been culling pretty steadily. They still come in faster than they go out, but they do go out in large quantities. And, no I don’t finish every book on the TBR pile. A colleague of my wife’s gave us about 30 boxes of older F&SF (enough to keep me reading without ever buying a new book for a good decade) and in pure self defense I’ve gotten in the habit of giving a new book 10-30 pages. If I don’t like it by then, I’m probably not going to, and out it goes. And just saying that give me a cold shiver down my author spine.

By: Marie Brennan

Marie Brennan — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:30:22 +0000

I try to go through periodically and pull out all the freebie books I’ve been given at World Fantasy or wherever, and give them each twenty or fifty pages in which to convince me I should keep them. If at the end of that span I’m not interested, then out they go.

I also try to cut down on the ones I’ve read, but my biggest stumbling block there is my packrat husband. He wants to keep books that I’d be just as happy to see go, even though he hasn’t read them in years and probably wouldn’t like them still if he did.

If this sounds brutal, though — I get rid of so many — bear in mind that we have nearly 2200 books as it is, and not enough space in which to put them.

By: Stephen Hope

Stephen Hope — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 04:45:23 +0000

About three years ago I switched almost exclusively to reading ebooks, partly because they are easier to get here (and cheaper, generally) and partly because I can’t fit any more paper books in my house. I keep all my ebooks on my computer, all the new ones get loaded on my pda to read. My TBR pile is being carried around in my pocket, on an sd chip. It has to be somewhere in 3 digits, but until the chip is full, there is no need to worry about it. And I can get a much bigger chip these days for just a few bucks.