Read a lot. Write a lot.
That’s probably the universal message we hear from great and prolific writers, most notably from Stephen King who said, “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. Read a lot, write a lot is the great commandment.”
I read a lot. I’d write a lot, too, if I didn’t spend so much time reading. To say I have a thousand books is an understatement. It’s well north of that if you take in the digital stuff on my Kindle. That’s not including the articles I find and the posts I read that constantly drop into my inbox.
And it’s not figuring the books I’ve given away over the years—mostly because my wife said I had too many books. Which leads me to ask you the question, “How many books is/are too many books?”
I’ve always been an avid reader. So were my folks. My dad sat for hours in his recliner with books in his hands. That was before the web days and to quote my sister, “If Dad had the internet, you’d never got him off it.”
My mother was an English teacher with a Masters in Lit. Her thesis was on Thomas Hardy, and I still have part of her extensive shelves that includes most of Emerson. (I have to say I find Emerson very trying to read.)
My dad left me five volumes of Churchill’s memoirs and two volumes of Eisenhower’s. And from the two of them, (my mum and dad, not Churchill and Eisenhower) I inherited a hardcover of Treasure Island printed in 1883. Plus, they gave me a beautiful, hand-illustrated work of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
Maybe I have too many books and that’s okay. They’ll go to my kids one day… if they want them. But I’m not parting with my books anytime soon. At least not if I can help it.
Back to my question. How many books is/are too many books? I don’t know if there’s a right or wrong answer to that.
But if I had to cull my collection and could retain only five (not counting the classics handed down from my parents) these are my keepers:
5. A dog-eared and marked-up paperback of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
4. A pristine and unfaded, first-edition hardcover of On Writing by Stephen King.
3. A delaminating Reclaiming History hand-signed by Vincent Bugloisi.
2. Descent Into Madness written by my friend Vernon Frolick.
1. My grandmother’s Bible.
Kill Zoners — How many books is/are too many books? Name the top five they’d have to pry from your hands. And what’s the proper term — is or are? Grammarly indicates it’s okay to use either.
I am not sure there are too many books. There are about 3-5,000 in the house right now. My children were shocked that we had more books than their school’s library.
The books going to the children when I leave this earth:
My great, great grandfather’s collection of books on the Indian wars in the 1870’s. Some have inscriptions. He is in several of them. His copy of Life on the Plains by G.A. Custer. It is the 4th edition, not quite as valuable as a first edition.
The Night Trilogy by Elie Wiesel, autographed. I bought it used the seller not knowing about the “squiggle” on the fly leaf, or not realizing it was real.
The books by friends, including my complete autographed Elaine Viets collection.
Too many books.
When my father died and people were over at the house, someone asked for a book from my father’s extensive collection. About 100 books left that day. There was a list of books to be sold to the rare book seller. That was about 50 books. Several boxes were donated to various places. That left about 5,000 books in the house. Maybe closer to 7,000. A book sale! How to price several thousand books? My brother hit on “by the pound”. At fifty cents a pound, a paperback was fifty cents or a dollar. The most expensive book was $8. Volunteers from Reading Is Fundamental helped with the sale. We split the proceeds. We split $4,000. The remaining books went to a large used book sale.
What wonderful comments, Alan. Thank you so much. I’ve re-read them four times. ~Garry
BTW – my Dad’s name was Alan, my first name is Alan, but I’ve gone by Garry, and my son’s name is Alan. (same spelling)
Good morning, friends. WordPress is not processing comments – again – for whatever reason but I can beat this gremlin at its own game and retrieve the comments from my email feed like Debbie did the other day. Here’s the first one from Michael Harling:
I am fortunate that my wife and I live in a small flat, which means we
need to cull our collection now and again or risk drowning under a
tsunami of paperbacks. We have it paired down to around a thousand,
but we circulate books with our friends so we always have fresh reads
on our shelves.
As for what would I keep, in addition to signed copies, my own books,
and other mementoes? On Writing, naturally, McCarthy’s Bar by Pete
McCarthy, because it was the first book my wife gave me, and Postcards
From No Man’s Land by Aidan Chambers, a YA book that I found very
moving. That’s it; you can take the rest.
If someone told me to cull my books down to 5, I’d roll my eyes and walk away.
With ya, Terry.
From Cynthia McClendon:
Only five? That wouldn’t hold me for a morning.
An interesting thing I’ve discovered. I can read a book on Kindle or
Libby (our library app) and not retain much. If I read a paperback or
hardcover I remember what I read. Same goes for newspapers.
Our family Bible is a keeper. It’s literally falling apart. I need to
get it restored. My brother gave it to me last fall. It was jarring to
see in my handwriting (my mom asked me to help her update it when I
was in high school) our oldest brother’s birth and death day. It’s the
same as my daughter’s birthday. Mom always said he was looking after
us. I believe it.
Airs above the Ground by Mary Stewart. So much fun. It’s the kind of
thing I’d love to write.
Living the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. Still in the middle of this
one but I love it.
Too many more to choose from.
When these home renovation shows rip out bookcases I always yell
“Don’t rip them out! Add more!”
From Debbie Burke:
Garry, Marie should be pushed from the top of my TBR stack. If the
fall didn’t kill her, she’d at least break bones.
As Cynthia mentioned, I also retain much better what I read from print
than from digital. That’s why my writing and reference books are all
in print.
The top five? I’ll get back to you in about a month.
We are culling. But I’ll not part with my 50s paperback originals, which includes the complete John D. MacDonald. But since that’s more than five, if I had to pick:
1. My wide-margin NIV Bible (1984 ed.)
2. The Last Lion: Visions of Glory (William Manchester)
3. Shakespeare’s Plays (Ed. Craig Bevington)
4. Pensees (Pascal)
5. After 1903–What? (Robt. Benchley, 1st ed.)
Your comment came through, Jim, Thanks! I just checked and see I have six of John D. McDonald’s. And I quickly thumbed through one – like how good is his dialogue? Wm Manchester – I have Death of a President on display in the JFK Assassination corner of my studio.
Down to five? Gasp! Couldn’t do it. There’s more than five with my name on the cover. LOL
A friend gave me Silence of the Lambs in pristine condition and an autopsy book that I’d never part with. 😉
Silence of the Lambs? Never heard of it, Sue. And what kind of a weird friend would give you an autopsy book?
In a roundabout way I’ve been thinking about this lately. I’ve been in a reading slump for months and it’s frustrating. Last week, I picked up a book I knew from page one I’d read all the way through. It got me thinking how I need to focus on books I love and make me want to up my writing game, focusing on a few to study deeply.
My taste and genre are a little different than most here. I write and love contemporary light-hearted books
My top five:
1. The Bible
2. Let Them Eat Cake by Sandra Byrd
3. My Phony Valentine by Courtney Walsh
4. The Words We Lost by Nicole Deese
5. Rocky Road by Becky Wade
Interesting selection, Tonya. Nice that the Bible tops your list.
5 books? Not doing it. Can’t. Won’t. It would be like having a club for the “popular kids.” As the high school nerd who hung out with other nerds, I’m not doing that to my books. Every book counts or no book counts to paraphrase a certain mystery author’s character.
All books matter, Kelly. Especially the nerd books written by and for nerds.
Good morning, Garry. One of the things I used to do as a librarian was cull the collection, we called it “weeding.” Each branch had librarians who would evaluate books that hadn’t been checked out in a year or longer and decide whether or not to keep a particular low-to-no circulation book. Circulation is library speak for a book being checked out.
I was even on a team back in the 1990s that would visit a branch in the morning before it was open to help weed the collection, and still have the t-shirt to prove it.
If a book was deemed important in some way to have in that library’s collection, it was kept. Otherwise, it would likely be discarded and sent to the library’s book store to be sold.
That’s how my wife and I look at our own personal library—we have bookshelves in the living room, her craft room, and my writing office, which has floor to ceiling shelves on one wall filled with mass market paperbacks. We’ve been weeding our library for years and are at a point where most of the books in it are books we want to keep. These days almost all of the fiction we buy is either ebook or audiobook.
I couldn’t give you list of just five. I’ll always have a library, even if it’s just a hundred books (it’s far more than that right now).
Hope you have a fine day and that the cyber gremlins don’t return.
Weeding a library collection! My desk was in the library of one school. We bought a selection of books from Borders and they threw in a few boxes of things that weren’t selling. A few ended up at my house. The librarian was trying to add some of the books to the card catalog. One he couldn’t find a record for. He tossed it to me and I looked at the cover and asked if he really wanted to shelve “The Pink Triangle Guide to London” in a middle school. It came home with me once I explained pink triangle.
One of my copies of Fahrenheit 451 is a new, library bound copy. There is just too much irony in rescuing 451 from a trash can.
Love the irony, Alan!
I could live in your house, Dale. Non-readers just would not be able to understand people like us. Right?
No way could I decide on 5 books from my collection and none of the books are valuable. The thought makes me depressed.
Good morning, Patricia. Thinking that all books are valuable makes me non-depressed. Just thinking of the thought and work that goes into the most insignificant book is amazing.
Top 5
1) Bible
2) On Writing
3) kitchen confidential
4) Daredevil Born Again
5) arghh…King Arthur? Harriet the Spy? I can’t do it….Martin Eden? Education of a Wandering Man?
I had to Google Daredevil, Warren. I see it’s coming out in film in 2025. Wow!
Too many books. Too many books. The words look like English, but they make no sense. 🙂
Makes no sense at all, Karen. No sense at all.
When I realized I was allergic to old paper, I donated most of my library to the library. The paperback books I kept are in air-tight containers that fit under the bed. The hard covers are in another bedroom. One of my most precious books is a historical romance novel written by one of my best friends and dedicated to me. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to being a NYT bestseller.
How nice to have a book dedicated to you, Marilynn!
Sorry to be so late to this interesting discussion, Garry. If they come for my books and allow me to keep just five, here they are:
1. The Bible
2. Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
3. The Sabbath by Abraham Heschel
4. The Iliad and The Odyssey (one edition) by Homer
5. I’d have to flip a few coins for fifth place. It would either be A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, or West with the Night by Beryl Markham.
Another vote for the Bible, Kay. Coincidently, I recently reread Frankl. It’s mandatory material for all humans.
“The Sabbath” – sounds like a good read. In honor of the fact that there’s no such thing as too many books, I just ordered myself a copy. LOL!
There’s no such thing as too many books. The issue is too little space. 😎 Living in a small apartment, shelf space is always a premium. The only thing that has curtailed my accumulation of physical books is my aging eyes. With the exception of historical reference books, I pretty much now only buy ebooks.
Can’t limit to 5 favorites. 19th century American history is my thing, particuarly with reference to the western U.S. so I’m especially fond of my books on that subject. And an incomplete set of Zane Grey novels in the red/tan hardcover binding I grew up reading back in the ancient times. Plus a shelf of writers reference books. And a totally insufficient quantity of The Journal of Arizona History volumes. And my Star Trek TOS paperback collection, etc, etc.
Every few years I go through the motions of culling my collection, but only end up donating maybe 1 or 2 books. But hey, I downsized! 😎
My dream is for a place where I can have floor to ceiling shelves and a ladder so I can not only have the books but easily access them. In my current situation, quite a few are boxed, others doubled stacked on my bookshelves. Cuts down on efficiency.
“There’s no such thing as too many books. The issue is too little space. 😎” Quote of the year, Brenda.
Hideously late to the party, again, today. I just dropped in to “like” other late-comer’s comments and say a few things the KillZone world will little note nor long remember, this late in the day.
List my five favorites? Five? You jest. Can’t be done. Can’t even be begun.
As I’ve mentioned before, our house had a “den,” which closely resembled a “library” –shelves on all four walls: two bookcases custom-made by Mr. Florido, a built-in by Leo Nyre, and an 8′ high 16th C. cabinet with glassed doors, craftsman unknown, but highly regarded. I estimate about 3,000 books.
Somewhere in Heaven is the twin to that room, each book in its familiar place.
I love hearing from you, JGA. I’d even more love to meet you in person. Note to bucket list: JGA 2024
My late husband and I (both writers) must have had about 1,000 fiction and nonfiction, and counting. Still, we’d (mostly me) would pick up more at library sales, used bookstores, etc. Luckily, we lived in a good-sized house.
Now I’m in a small cottage. One of the worst things about the move was having to cull my books (sigh). At the time, Covid prevented my local library from acquiring new books. II was able to sell some to local book dealers. Finally, I ended up having to actually bring a few dozen to the local dump — -including several of the earlier books (nonfiction) of mine that were published years ago. That was the first and hopefully the only time that I ever was forced to take books to a dump. A very sad time indeed.
I still have a good-sized collection, nearly all fiction, about half of which are mysteries (some of which I authored).
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This a really sad story, Sandra. Having to dump books, never mind you own books, just should not happen. Glad your authorship survives. Thanks for commenting!