For the bibliophile, what to do with the books is life's central decorating issue, an ongoing discourse, a debate, and often an outright decor war, between aesthetics, the practicalities of storage and the consuming mindlessness of passion.

I've got a mere 1600 or so books here in my living room - that pales in comparision to the 20k these people are talking about. Decorating? I'm a hermit so no one sees it but my family anyway - plastic utility shelves have proved the most capable of holding the most books for me, so I have several shelves of those.

As for WHY SO MANY BOOKS - I do have a few huge personal collections that I hold as an investment. My occult book collection has about 500 volumes. I recently sold one - it brought 70.00 more than what I'd bought it for a few years ago. I didn't want it anyway.

I am an avaricious reader, but lately I've been selling my collection off, and culling it down. I am scared that the books might fall on my head one day otherwise.

When you're buried in books