how many books do you have?

[Cullens_Girl]

Some of my friends have been commenting about the ginormous amount of books we have. I've cleared out toys to accommodate more books. We have a bookcase downstairs with that has 3 shelves - 2 bigger and 1 smaller shelf that fits board books. And I have a bookcase upstairs with seasonal books and educational books I've collected for when he's older. I often go through and clear out books that weren't big hits, but we still have a lot. Just wondering how many you all have for your kids? I can't be the only book junky... We go to the library weekly and he has his favorites that he reads over and over, but it's not unusual to see him on the floor in a stack of books looking through them.

DS loves books and so when I see good deals on quality books I get them for him.

Did I mention he's only 2? LOL

We are definitely a book family... DH's office is lined with tall shelves loaded with scifi/fantasy books and our bed has underbed bins underneath loaded with books as well.

[kewb]

Too many to count. They are everywhere in our house. DS has a 3 shelf book case in his room which is overflowing. DD has a 3 shelf bookcase in her room which is overflowing and dh and I have bins of books all over the house.

[earthluvinmama]

Way too many!! I am currently finishing a room in our basement and converting into a family library.

I'm thinking about using Readerware or LibraryThing to organize myself better. I hate when I buy a book only to find that I already had a copy! :

[Cullens_Girl]

oh my. If I'm not the only one than you've all just enabled me. I'm doomed. I have 3/4 of DS's books logged on a spreadsheet. But I can't keep up with the flow! LOL

[ShaggyDaddy]

I grew up in a household where maybe 1/4 of the walls were lined with 6 foot book shelves (stacked 2 or 3 deep) with stacks of books on most tables, with boxes of books in the attic. And it was worse before... I can remember as a small kid driving with my dad to donate 2 truck loads of books to a library from my parents' collection. We are talking about AFLICTED book junkies.

In our house we only have maybe a 6 foot and a 4 foot book case full of "grown up" books (mostly car, technical, and birth/parenting books)

both kids under 2 and I would guess we have "eleventeen" books. At least 150 pounds of board/kids books.

[sweetfiend]

Let's see . . . We have 20' by 6' downstairs plus my son has 4' by 6' and dd has 4' by 6' and our bedroom has the same so that equals (my math for the day!) 192 square feet of books.

[earthluvinmama]

Originally Posted by Cullens_Girl

oh my. If I'm not the only one than you've all just enabled me. I'm doomed. I have 3/4 of DS's books logged on a spreadsheet. But I can't keep up with the flow! LOL

With Readerware you can buy a hand held scanner and just scan the upc on the book. Saves a ton of time I imagine...I just haven't been able to justify the cost yet. You don't need the scanner to use the program though...you can manually enter in the isbn and then it pulls all of the book's info and catagorizes it...

I can't wait to get started!

[Shianne]

Originally Posted by earthluvinmama

With Readerware you can buy a hand held scanner and just scan the upc on the book. Saves a ton of time I imagine...I just haven't been able to justify the cost yet. You don't need the scanner to use the program though...you can manually enter in the isbn and then it pulls all of the book's info and catagorizes it...

I can't wait to get started!

That is so cool!!! I can't wait to get started either, although it will probably take me a few months. We have a two 7x7 custom built bookcases that are overflowing with books. A standard six x 2(my five and six buttons don't work, sorry) Overflowing with books and magazines. I have a five x five bookshelf in my room filled to the brim and then the boys each have a bookshelf in their rooms that are filled. I would love to turn the downstairs into a library, but that is the teen's domain.

[annethcz]

We actually have gotten rid of many of our books. We have access to a good library system. Although it's tempting to keep lots of books around 'just in case' we want to read them, I found having a lot of books to be overwhelming.

I do keep a list of books we've read, so if we want to read it again, it's a simple task to check it out from the library again. I've also found that I read MORE now that we keep fewer books in the house. If I know I have a book and I can read it anytime, there isn't much incentive for me to read the book in a timely manner. However, if I check out a book from the library I know that I have a limited amount of time in which to read the book.

We've gone from having about 10 bookshelves full of books, down to 1. It actually felt really good to let all of those other books go (not to mention, it has helped to pad my paypal account ). I have kept a few favorite fiction books, and many reference and non-fiction books. But we've pared it down quite a bit.

[Cassiopeia]

Ginormous here too. We just donated about 150 to the library book sale.

[mags]

Too many! I already had a book addiction before having kids. Well, now I am nutso about getting kids books, so nuts I'm feeding my addiction even more, b/c I am also an usborne books consultant, lol! My problem is that my youngest is a destroyer. He will rip, eat and destroy books, and if he sees them on a shelf, he just loves to mess them all up. I am eagerly looking forward to when he outgrows this phase so I can actually get some nice bookshelves. Right now I have stuff in some bookcases in a gated off room and books in boxes!

[sewingmama]

I've lost track, but at one point it was somewhere around 400 children's books and growing. Not to mention how many we've got out from the library at any one time. Plus the non-kid books. We've got bookshelves and baskets of books everywhere, and we love it.

[Aurora]

Tons! We have bookshelves everywhere and need more(shelves and books!).

[AnnR33]

I shudder to think of the actual number :
We also have about a dozen different book shelves-some short and 2 are 8ft tall and overflowing.
I think I do so well and get rid of a box but then I come home with another box....
I wouldn't change it though, I love books and my kids love books. Nothing better than hearing your kid say "just a minute, I'm just finishing my book"

[illinoismommy]

DH likes to read, I LOVE to read. My toddler loves to look at books too, and have me read to him. I think we have quite a few for him, for his age.... DH and I recently picked which ones to keep and which to sell on half.com so we've cleared room for the future.

[oldermamato5]

I'd be embarrassed to count,and I am frequently purging! Books and plants are my thing. My kids love them too,so we have one big bookcase just for their books.

[NannyL]

We have an embarrassing number of books. I buy myself at least a book a week (usually more), and I buy the kids I nanny for at least that many as well. (I actually went a little overboard last weekend, and spent $155 at Barnes and Noble, buying tons of books for myself and the kids.) I have several bookcases full of books - one for fiction, one for nonfiction, one for child development, nanny-related, homeschool, and curriculum books, one for cookbooks, and one for foreign language books. The kids have a completely full bookcase in their room, and a huge pile of books next to it, waiting for me to put together another bookcase, which will probably also be filled. We do get some books from the library, but since the kids speak/understand other languages that we can't find at the library here, we buy a lot of books when we travel, so we have them around.

[phathui5]

Let's see:

We have four five shelf tall bookcases in my office.
There are two four shelf tall ones in one of the playrooms.
Our homeschool bookshelf is five shelves tall.
There are still books we haven't unpacked yet in the basement.

[TEAK's Mom]

I refuse to answer that question on grounds that it would incriminate me.

Let's just say lots.

[nolonger]

I've only got one floor-to-ceiling bookshelf because they are very expensive, but I think I've got six four-shelf bookcases in addition to that in the living room and the rest of the wall space is about 3-4 shelves high of milk-crate-and-board bookshelves. We have a two-shelf high board-and-brick bookcase in the hallway, dd has one storebought four-shelf bookcase and several milk crates full of books in her room and I have about 6 milk crates and ther bottom of my bedside table in my room.

This is after last year's recent purge, when i got rid of all the "little girl" books except for one American Girl, one Betsy-Tacy, one babysitter's club, etc. for the memories and to show my grandbabies someday.

I like ebooks because they take up less space so I don't have to give up any of my pre-exiasting books, but it's really not the same as curling up with a regular paper book.

We're also regular library patrons and have a long, long wish list on Amazon.