Comments on: Attention Book Hoarders

By: sandrar

sandrar — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:01:41 +0000

Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. Cheers! Sandra. R.

By: Tooty

Tooty — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:30:15 +0000

I used to have a sci-fi collection that was just humungus. I’d been collecting from the age of 17 when I discovered Asimov, Clarke, Anderson, even E.E (Doc) Smith, etc. But at the age of 47 I found myself taking my family to live in another country. In order to do so we all have to give up something (often many things), and guess what it was that I had to wave bye-bye to. The worst thing was – some of them hadn’t been read in 15 years or so. And now they’ll probably never get read – at least by me!
Still – now I write, so maybe things aren’t so bad.

By: beyond bluestockings

beyond bluestockings — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 11:31:21 +0000

What I really find hard is when I have bought a copy of something at a charity shop – you know the tatty, dusty, dog eared variety, then love it. (that’s not the bad part) What gets hard is I then look for a great, hard cover, swishy version, buy it, but can’t let go of the daggy one because it was the one I made friends with first. Imagine that scenario repeated hundreds of times and I will soon need to get rid of some furniture so there is still room for the books…

By: Cliff Burns

Cliff Burns — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 04:01:23 +0000

“A gift you gave yourself in the future”. That’s brilliant! Often I’ll hear a reference to an author or think “Hmm…I know the name” and I’ll go to my office and find some short story collection by that writer I bought ten or fifteen years ago.

So your statement is poetic…and apropos.

By: blogguest

blogguest — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 03:46:12 +0000

So true, Cliff, so true. Your Proust reference was funny and I love that idea of a book “waiting to be freed from captivity”… I can imagine a cool short story could be written from that point of view!

And I too buy those books cheap even though I never will read them. It IS madness! However, it’s fun to find weird things in the home library from time to time and sometimes recall them: “Oh yeah! I forgot I had that book!” and then you sit down and read it like it was a gift you gave yourself in the future. Yeah, that’s magical.

By: Cliff Burns

Cliff Burns — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 14:56:01 +0000

It’s terrible. This book-collecting mania is a true affliction. Yes, I have all of the great Proust cycle…but never any time to read it. Book stacks teeter precariously all over my office and we need more bookshelves (and wall space) downstairs, books languishing in boxes in the basement, waiting to be freed from captivity. And yesterday, I pluck a hardcover copy of Ingmar Bergman’s script for “Scenes From A Marriage” off a library sale table for 50 cents. Why? I haven’t even seen the movie. But Bergman fascinates me and I must have the book, it’s that simple.

Madness…