How Big is your Personal LIbrary

[easye]

Greetings, 

I know having "Hard copies" of book sis not necessarily in vogue, but I am curious how big your personal library is?  

As a wargame designer, I have a pretty decent amount of rulebooks, but also Non-fiction history books.  However, by decent size I think 1 book shelf that is floor to ceiling and about 4 feet wide.  This "collection" is shockingly small compared to some other book lovers I know.  It is also shockingly small compared to other wargamers I know. 

Typically, I keep books I need for research projects and that is it.  Entertainment books I leave in the local neighborhood mini-libraries and paperbacks I leave in random public places with a note to take. read, and pass-on.  I never use E-readers.  However, I am even considering starting to donate my research books to the local library instead of holding onto them myself, but I would need guarantees they won't be sold off.  I still need them for research projects after all! 

So, how about you?  How big is your library?  What is in it?  How do you decide to keep or dispose?  How much is E-reader vs. hardcover?  


   

[mdgv2]

Umm…

90 hardback volumes of Judge Dredd, the mega collection, 154 and counting volumes of 2000AD the ultimate collection, maybe…..60-70 black library novels, fuck knows how many GW rule and army books etc, maybe 100 or so Marvel TPBs.

[bobtheinquisitor]

5 full sized bookshelves full (plus two more for my son), with maybe a dozen boxes full of books in the garage/storage, and probably 50 more books in my car.

This is after some effort at Kondoing my collection, although it was interrupted halfway through. I plan to take out at least 5 boxes worth of books and donate them when the heat dissipates.

[Haighus]

It is a bit hard to judge as a lot of my books are still stored at my parents place, but probably approximately one Ikea Billy bookcase worth of paper books.

My partner has about the same with the same caveat, except they have a bunch of manga instead of rulebooks.

Digital library is much bigger- I have 20+GB of Warhammer materials collected over some time. I don't think I have it anymore, but I did also have the entiriety of Project Gutenberg on my PC, which at the time was just shy of 40GB of literature that had come off copyright. It will be bigger now, that was 7 or 8 years ago.

[Disciple of Fate]

I have about 500 books of all varieties in 5 1m by 2m bookcases. Maybe a 100 are hobby related.

[tannhauser42]

Not counting RPG or other gaming related books, I have two full bookcases of fiction. Mostly fantasy. I've been slowly downsizing my physical library over the last several years, though. At my age and with my eyesight, I very much appreciate the adjustable font size on my Kindle.

[pacific]

Good to hear another 2000AD/Dredd fan @mgdv2 !
My collection pales in comparison to that. I think I have a bunch of the collected series, some Strontium Dog and some Slaine, who are otherwise my favourite characters.

I have a one book case in my 'cave' which has a mix of novels, history and reference books, with a small section for hobby stuff. The living room book case is a mix of travel books and magazines. As I don't have a massive amount of space, I generally only keep books which are special to me or that I enjoyed so much I can imagine reading again. Everything else goes to family and friends or a charity shop, so I usually have a churn of things coming and going.

One of life's great pleasures though! I can't imagine living somewhere without a good supply of reading matter nearby.

[mdgv2]

I absolutely adore 2000AD.

As a comic, it’s basically the proving ground for anyone who’s anyone that’s British and involved in the comics industry. From a single Future Shock, to a multiple issue Dredd or other staple, to a Mega Epic, to Marvel and/or D.C.

Individual issues can be a bit touch and go, as being an anthology there’s no guarantee you’ll enjoy everything in every prog. But there’s always something you’ll enjoy.

Heck, out of the 234 volumes so far? It’s really only Cal Hab and Tyranny Rex I found myself unable to finish. And because both a “greatest hits and general retrospectives”, I’ve been exposed to stuff I’ve never heard of before which I’ve adored.

Best thing about Dredd and his Universe? It’s a single, pretty much coherent, timeline. Anything that happens stays happened, which for a near 50 year old strip is astounding.

[nfe]

No idea. I've just counted the books on one shelf and there are 79 A5 paperbacks. There are 32 shelves like it around the house. All full but some are obviously hardbacks, some are A4 rulebooks, some are trades etc.

2,000 I guess, plus whatever is lying around on tables (a couple dozen?) and what my wife and I have in our offices (hundreds, I imagine).

[nfe]

No idea. I've just counted the books on one shelf and there are 79 A5 paperbacks. There are 32 shelves like it around the house. All full but some are obviously hardbacks, some are A4 rulebooks, some are trades etc.

2,000 I guess, plus whatever is lying around on tables (a couple dozen?) and what my wife and I have in our offices (hundreds, I imagine).

[herzlos]

I've been ruthless over the years and donate anything I'm not likely to re-read for a while. I tend to buy books at flea markets and charity shops so I kind of view it more as paying about £1/book to rent them for a while. So my current book collection is maybe 4ft of shelf space: Some rule books and text books that I keep, the LOTR series I keep, and a stack of fiction I've picked up but not read yet. I'm currently working through the Discworld series in publication order so have most of them ready.