Discussion: How Do You Decide What Books Are Keepers?

**First let me start by letting you know that this weekend I’m attending the DC National Book Festival and will not be doing by ‘Stacking the Shelves’ post. BUT I hope to have plenty of pictures and signed books**

Now, on to the topic for discussion: How do you decide what books are keepers? As any bookish person knows, keeping up with our brand of addiction can become quite expensive.  Many people have different strategies to circumvent this, such as trading, borrowing from the library or other people, buying used books or only buying books that they have read and loved.  Once you have that coveted book in your hand, what to do with it?

For the most part I would love to keep all my books forever and ever, but being realistic I can run out of space fast (so far I have three ‘Billy’ bookshelves from IKEA in my basement) and hubby keeps talking about how we will need another soon.  See proof below:

Once I read a book I decide what to keep based on these:

• ·         If I loved the book, it’s a keeper
• ·         If it’s by a favorite author (regardless if I read it or not, I’ll get to it soon, promise!)
• ·         It it’s signed – I just can’t seem to part with a signed copy…they are so special to me

These are being donated:

• ·         If it’s been patiently waiting for me in my shelves for over two years, maybe it’s time to face reality and give them away (to the library or in a giveaway)
• ·         If I didn’t like the book – I feel a lot less guilty about letting these go
• ·         If I don’t have the whole series – sometimes I have a combination of physical copies of books and an eBooks (or eGalley) for a series; it is easier to let go of these

How do you decide which books get a new home?  Do you trade or sell books?  Do you buy only eBooks? Just for fun, how many of the books on your shelves you haven’t read yet?