Books

[Eoraptor1]

I tend to pass a book on once I've read it. I have kept this incredible oversized book about Spitfires, good narrative and incredible pictures and diagrams, although it was damaged in a water leak.

Currently reading Skinny Legs And All again.

Supermarine Spitfire? I've never seen one in real life, though someone across the bridge in Canada had a restored one for a while, a Spit IX. I have a digital model of that plane for FSX. I live near an airbase so I see lots of planes, and we have the air shows during the summer. Once, driving by the airport I saw a restored P-51 on the tarmac, and nearly drove the car into a drainage ditch. Was that thing ever beautiful...

JAMES

 

[circles]

Supermarine Spitfire? I've never seen one in real life, though someone across the bridge in Canada had a restored one for a while, a Spit IX. I have a digital model of that plane for FSX. I live near an airbase so I see lots of planes, and we have the air shows during the summer. Once, driving by the airport I saw a restored P-51 on the tarma, and nearly drove the car into a drainage ditch. Was that thing ever beautiful...

JAMES

Yes. I bought it to model the airplane in 3d.

 

[rolandson]

Books are, in my home, sacred.

The detritus of professions and passions lost to the advance of technology or deteriorating health...not so much.
Sadly, the rubbish heap awaits...

 

[davidKOS]

It's not pretentious if one has actually read the books.

Perhaps so in a world were fewer people read anymore.

 

[ukoldgit]

Got to get me a couple of these

 

[soulman969]

IME the major problem with a huge collection of books is what takes place if you ever have to move. A friend had over 30 boxes of hardcover books in her library and those boxes weighed a ton.

Never again will I volunteer to help a friend move who collects books. My back was sore for three solid weeks.

 

[Mansonienne]

I have a real hard time throwing out books.

 

[rolandson]

I've marked a transition...

I returned to school in 2017 to pursue another passion. I spent a good deal of time in libraries and such, but most of what I otherwise would have had to travel for was available online. Thus an e-reader became indispensable. I never dreamed it possible.

When covid hit I was moving from "student" to "candidate" and preparing to assume a teaching role. Then my health intervened and my candidacy was put on hold. It only required two bankers boxes to remove my books from the office space I was assigned. In contrast, when I was laid off from a teaching position in 1982, it required about 20.

Since then I've discovered that not only journals and research materials are available in an "e-" format...
Novels too...!
Imagine that!

 

[StevieMar]

I like books. I work in an office where you can’t have an e-reader. I always have a book in progress, and I read some amount every day.

That said, a few years ago I started downsizing my collection because it would be hard as heck to pack and move hundreds of books. Some go to friends; others get donated to my local library to be resold.

 

[StratUp]

Used to buy a lot of new hardcovers. Then I'd donate them to the library. One day a light bulb went off and I realized I could also borrow books from the library. So I bought less.

Moved, library was a distance away with traffic, so I started shopping used books. When I'm done, I donate them places like Goodwill, Savers, etc. They can sell them to someone else and make money.

FYI - selling books is very low profit. Check out some of the used sellers and see how little they get for them.

 

[circles]

Used to buy a lot of new hardcovers. Then I'd donate them to the library. One day a light bulb went off and I realized I could also borrow books from the library. So I bought less.

Moved, library was a distance away with traffic, so I started shopping used books. When I'm done, I donate them places like Goodwill, Savers, etc. They can sell them to someone else and make money.

FYI - selling books is very low profit. Check out some of the used sellers and see how little they get for them.

There is a used bookstore near me, I plan to trade the Spitfire book in on something with them. I tend to move books I'm no longer referencing or reading.

 

[Packrat]

I'll talk to my bookie, see what he thinks on the subject.

 

[StratUp]

Supermarine Spitfire? I've never seen one in real life, though someone across the bridge in Canada had a restored one for a while, a Spit IX. I have a digital model of that plane for FSX. I live near an airbase so I see lots of planes, and we have the air shows during the summer. Once, driving by the airport I saw a restored P-51 on the tarmac, and nearly drove the car into a drainage ditch. Was that thing ever beautiful...

JAMES

You might want to visit this place. It's in Stow, MA: https://www.americanheritagemuseum.org/aircrafts/?tab=tab-two

They have a restored Supermarine Spitfire. I thought they had a P51 there but it looks like it's an A36 (a modified P51).

The used to offer rides for a large fee, but I don't see that listed on the site anymore.

 

[Neil.C]

I have a lot of reference books that I will never get rid of but novels etc get read and then donated to charity shops.

Usually pick up a few there too!

 

[Neil.C]

Yes. I bought it to model the airplane in 3d.

View attachment 519539

Look forward to seeing that.

I built a large 1/24 scale MK VB.

 

[Mansonienne]

I have an ereader but also still buy books. We are running out of storage space, though, and I have started thinking about not leaving behind tons of stuff that has to be sorted and disposed of. We will have some work done on the house starting in January - I'll sort through my books and see what I can give away...
I used to have a real thing for dictionaries and have a bunch (studied languages and linguistics and did a certificate programme in translation), including some big unabridged ones. Talk about books replaced by technology! I wonder if even a library would take those....

 

[CigBurn]

My love of books goes way back. Last time I had to unload my collection, I filled two vans. Everything from Doyle, Kjelgaard to Kierkegaard to Eusebius, Lao Tzu, Watts, or Ko hung and Suzuki to Josephus. Not to mention the myriad books on the history of art or books devoted to a number of particular artists oeuvre.

You can't take it with you they say, but you can sure store a lot in the old cranium if desired. May as well gather dust in there.

 

[Stratbats]

I now only guess at how many books I have... Editions of Samuel Johnson. Nabokov. The 6 volume Divine Comedy in the Singleton translation. The entire Pepys Diary (11 volumes). Entire Coleridge. Entire Thoreaus Journals. Tolstoy, Chekhov, Nabokovs Eugene Onegin, four volumes... Boswell's Life of Johnson , Oxford edition, 6 volumes. Editions of Proust. Ditto Hawthorne. Melville (The Northwestern-Newberry Edition)... Books on Jazz, Opera ... Philosophy...

Is it crowded? Yes. Not cluttered. I have all these wonderful, and not so wonderful, people around me. Fascinating people! Nothing like picking up a volume, a physical book! And you go round only once and I love to read...

 

[WelhavenT]

DVDs and books, I asked my friends to get what they want, the rest went to the Salvation Army.

I’m going to do the same with 500 cds soon. 600 cds are repackaged into small maps.

 

[Ian Ashdown]

I will face a similar problem when I am no longer able to counter the downsizing argument. I have hundreds of books on race cars, road cars, engineering design, motorcycles etc., some as valuable as $1K+, some quite rare. I’m not yet ready to sell them, I’d give them to a local school, but most aren’t really school books, if I die first my kids will have no clue or caring about any of them so they’ll probably get tossed out.

A suitable charity might bother to make good use of them . . .

Ian