I think Mr. Bookdwarf expects to die under a pile of the many many books I bring home each week. I can see it now, coming home to find him under that pile of fiction that I swear I’m going to get to read one of these days. Or perhaps it will be one of the cats, swerving too close to the piles during their daily prancing. You would think that reading this article in the NYT about purging your book collection would inspire me. Not so! My collection does not need to lose 50 pounds, rather it needs to tone itself some more (excuse the weight analogy, but it sprang to mind). For every book I get remove, I probably add back two or three. It’s getting to be a dangerous habit. Mr. Bookdwarf says that we will have to add some support to the floor of our second floor apartment if we keep going this way—okay, if I keep going this way. One day perhaps I will do a large purge, but for now, I’ll just keep being creative, getting new bookcases and dreaming of a world where I can actually find the time to read all these books.
Bookdwarf
Come fall into a book hole!
Bookdwarf 
I’m with you there. I had to do something like a purge when I moved from the US to Europe, as I could only bring so many books with me. Of course I still own all of my books, it’s just that some are with me and some are with my parents. You can’t imagine how hard it was to choose! It’s like choosing which cat is my favorite… No, scratch that, that’s easy.
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What a glorious way that would be to die, though!
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The Great Book Purge: Bibliomania is contageous. When my late husband proposed to me, he included his book collection in his proposal. I had not seen it at that time and had no idea. that he was a major book collector. After 28 years together, he passed away suddenly one night. I was left with his massive collection–it was estimated to be about 15,000 books. We had 42 book cases, but they didn’t hold them all. I sold about half of them, auctioned some of the rarer books, gave some of them to his already-established collection at a major University, and moved the rest –I estimate around 4,000 books, to my new home. They fit on the shelves now, but oddly, I miss so many of the books (which were in various collections) I remember seeing on the shelves–rather like one would miss a favorite pet that ran away. At least I kept enough to maintain the heart of the home–actually, I kept a little too much. More purging will have to be done–later!
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I don’t own a lot of books, mostly because I’m always giving my books away. I only keep classics or books I’ll re-read. I used to have a lot of books, but I moved one year and, while packing, ended up with something like five or six boxes of books. I decided that that was just too many to move, so I went through them and swore that I’d only keep enough for one small box. It worked; I ended up simply leaving the boxes at various Goodwill stores (I’ll never, ever throw away a book, no matter how bad it is). My collection, funnily enough, has gotten smaller since then. Come to think of it, the only books I absolutely refuse to part with are “The Divine Comedy,” “1984,” “The Remains of the Day,” and my Danielewski books.
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