What do you do with books after you read them?
By maezee
@maezee (41997)
United States
February 29, 2012 7:46pm CST
Do you hang onto them forever, borrow them to friends or family, or donate them? I tend to buy my books for about 50 cents apiece at the thrift store, and then wind up with about a million books that I don't necessarily LIKE enough to keep.
Sometimes I will borrow a book to my aunt or my sister if I think they will like it. Other times I will just donate them to charity, just because they weren't good enough to keep or to borrow to anyone else. Other times, if the book is so good I would re-read it in the future (such as some of Augusten Burrough's stuff - one of my favorite authors) - I would keep it in my stash of awesome books.
For those of you who donate them, do you pick a certain charity to donate them to?
My aunt donates her books to a high-rise for the seniors to read; I sort of liked this idea. Normally I just donate them back to the Goodwill or the ARC.
What about you? What do you tend to do with books after you read them?
2 people like this
28 responses
@UmiNoor (4483)
• Malaysia
1 Mar 12
That is why I don't buy fiction. After you've read it once, you might not want to read it again. I usually borrow books from the library or I just download the ebook version. That way my house won't be cluttered with unwanted books. I only buy non-fiction and reference books. They're timeless. I can read them over and over again without getting bored.
@bounce58 (17387)
• Canada
13 Mar 12
I was at a local community center last weekend and I saw that they had an 'adopt-a-book' campaign. I thought I should donate some of my books as most are just lying around in the house gathering dust. Even the new autobiographies that I just bought, and have just read not two months ago are just somewhere in the house (I couldn't even remember where I put them).
Maybe I'll bring them to the center this coming weekend.
@girl_thinking (1959)
• Philippines
7 Mar 12
Hi, so far I still have all my books except for the ones I lent but were never returned to me 
Nonetheless my books overflow and I barely have a space to keep them. I have a plan of selling them for a cheap price. Instead of just giving them away to people I am not sure who will really read them, I will just sell them. That way, I am sure that the person who will buy will likely to really read since he/she spent for them 
Nonetheless my books overflow and I barely have a space to keep them. I have a plan of selling them for a cheap price. Instead of just giving them away to people I am not sure who will really read them, I will just sell them. That way, I am sure that the person who will buy will likely to really read since he/she spent for them 
@Tamosree1993 (1525)
• India
5 Mar 12
I will borrow them to my grandfather.
He read it and give me sweet smile.
I like this smile.
@hetharia44 (63)
• United States
6 Mar 12
I like to keep my favorite ones, and as for the others, I will donate them to Salvation Army thrift shop. New books are not so cheap. Therefore, I just go to the local library. In that case I just have return the books. We used to had tons of books, but they just collect dust and the more books we bought the more room we needed. One we decided to donated those books to the local City College and Library, and decided to save money by taking advatage our local library.
@sylvia13 (1850)
• Nelson Bay, Australia
1 Mar 12
I will soon be going away and one big problem I have is to get rid of all the books we have (in English, Spanish, German and some French). I have given some to charity, but selling them again is not easy to do, especially now that one can buy books to read on Kindles! Another problems is the postage, as charges have increased enormously lately!
@Anne18 (11029)
•
1 Mar 12
Nice and simple, I return them to the library.
I'm trying not ot buy any books as I only tend ot read them once and am trying ot save money. I only buy a book if I know that I am going ot keep it for a very long time,.
If I turn books out I tend ot pass the children's books on ot people who have children or I give them to the charity shops
@Porcospino (31366)
• Denmark
5 Mar 12
I have a collection of books in my home, but I don't buy a lot of books. Most of the time I prefer to borrow books at the library instead of buying them. I keep some of the books that I have bought. If I really like the author or if I know that I am going to read them again I keep the books in my collection. If I don't intend to read them again, I sell them or donate them to charity. My husband and I have a garage sale sometimes, and I have been able to sell some of my books that way. I have also sold some of my books online. The rest of the books I donate to second hand shops if my friends aren't interested in them. There are many second hand shops in my area, when we give them our old things for instanse books they sell them and spend the money on charity.
@millertime (1394)
• United States
4 Mar 12
I tend to hang onto most all of my books, unless I really didn't like it. I don't always read them again, but I always like to have them on hand to lend to a friend or relative who might like to read them. It makes me feel good to share the enjoyment of a good read with someone else.
Another reason I don't get rid of them, and this may sound a little weird, is that I just like having books around. Having shelves of books in my personal space is somehow comforting to me. That sort of flies in the face of modern technology and is the main reason why I haven't yet embraced the idea of using electronic readers and having books in digital form but it's just the way I'm wired I guess. I still prefer the tactile experience of real books with real pages.
I probably will thin my shelves at some point though and get rid of some of my books. I will have to look into worthy places to donate them to. Just not right now. 
@megamatt (14292)
• United States
5 Mar 12
Depends on the book really. If it is something that I do think that I would like to take a look at again, at least more than once or twice, I would want to hang onto it. I have a few books that I have kept back, because they were that good. Of course, given that my reading standards have rather changed over the years and I have gotten more picky over the years, I have been selective with my reading.
Those books that I don’t want to keep, go out in the garage sale so I can recoup my losses, which tends to happen about once a year. And if they don’t sell, off to the library they go, which I’m sure they appreciate any donations that they re getting, given the fact that their finances and business what they it is, it is a good thing to rather help them out well I really can. Plus they do have some use for them.
@craziestqueenever (1819)
• Philippines
1 Mar 12
I just placed those books on the bookshelves. I'm planning to make my mini-library. With the advent of technology, I decided not to buy books anymore, I mean I can download them on the internet and save them in my flash drive. I'm also planning to sell my Nursing books.
@Navoptimus (172)
• India
1 Mar 12
I usually store my books even if I have read them. But the books which I don't need anymore, I sell them to the book sellers at one-third of the original price. I do donate some of them, but not all.
@crazzydolphin (3636)
• United States
1 Mar 12
Personally i read a lot just like you.
when i get so many books that i have no room for any more i will sit down and make a pileofall the ones that i do not like enough to keep. After that i will show my neighbor who reads even more than I do. She will pick out the ones she likes and I let her keep them. sometimes she will pay me a little but not a whole lot. If after that I still have some books left over I look into some places that will let you trade in some books for other books that you may like better. If i am unable to do that then I will take them to a thrift store where i will usually buy a few mroe to take home and read. There is one other thing that i do very often with my books and that is to take it to a book stored where all their money earned goes to a charity they do not make any money off of your books. They will give you a paper to write off the donation on your taxes tho.
@yanzalong (18982)
• Indonesia
1 Mar 12
Hi, maezee, how's it going?
I never finish it in a single reading. I always read it several times. I used to read novels. Now all my books are all about educations, so the books are read many times.
What about you? It seems to me that you are a regular book reader.
@Metatronik (6199)
• Pasay, Philippines
1 Mar 12
I just keep it because at times I have this feeling that I am going to read that again. But I haven't do that donating it to the charity not unless if those are my old story or fairytale books.
@Professor2010 (20162)
• India
1 Mar 12
I buy books of my subjects like ultrasonics, physics, numerology, astrology and gemology, i also subscribe to so many scientific magazines, for me they are worth their weight in gold, i have preserved them,
i have books those are more than 150 years old i inherited thenm from my father and grand father.
@almond24 (1248)
• Hungary
1 Mar 12
Most of the time I only buy those books that I want to keep. Books are very expensive nowadays and I prefer to borrow them from the library if I know I just want to read them once.
I had children's books that I donated to nursery school, or sold other books that I used to study from. Sometimes I re-sell them to second hand book stores, but they are not interested in all kinds of books.
