When is Enough 'Enough'

[wvcherrybomb]

I was a bit crazed when I got my first Kindle. I literally had thousands of books in no time at all. Between public domain, daily freebies, and the ones I bought, they just kept adding up.

I quickly got Calibre to organize them all, but still had a "thing" about keeping them all on my Kindle because I could. I was ecstatic about being able to have that kind of selection at my fingertips. I couldn't even part with the books after I had read them.

Eventually, my Kindle starting slowing down. I realized I had become a hoarder and had more than I could ever possibly read. I formatted my Kindle, and now keep less than 100 books on it at any given time. I went through Calibre and deleted any books that I wasn't at least semi-excited to read.

Now, I look at the freebies on most days, but only download ones I KNOW I will read. I no longer take them just because they are free. I still have a love affair with my Kindle, I just don't burden it with extra baggage.

[Ripplinger]

I remember Suncoast video stores in malls! Along with the big book stores.

We had a fantastic huge bookstore in downtown Chicago, Kroch's and Brentano's, best service you could ask for, regular book signings, but they finally had to close in '95. I still miss that place.

But this thread is serving to motivate me to gather more books for when I'm really old and can't do anything except read... I'll be set for the rest of my life then (as long as my ereaders hold out).

[garrybuck]

Originally Posted by pholy

That is an excellent sig line. May I add it to mine, garrybuck?

Sure, no problem.

[jersysman]

Do you know if you get the CD from Project Gutenberg, you will instantly have thousands of books. Perhaps this is what was added to the harddrive that was presently to Joan M here. The latest DVD contains over 29,000 books.

Those interested in The CD and DVD Project can use this link to find out more information.

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenb...nd_DVD_Project

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by jersysman

Do you know if you get the CD from Project Gutenberg, you will instantly have thousands of books. Perhaps this is what was added to the harddrive that was presently to Joan M here. The latest DVD contains over 29,000 books.

Those interested in The CD and DVD Project can use this link to find out more information.

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenb...nd_DVD_Project

How did I miss that part of Project Gutenberg before! Whenever I get books from there I always feel like I'm leaving another 50 behind that I'd really be interested but just haven't stumbled on them. Thanks for that info, already downloading it now.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

How did I miss that part of Project Gutenberg before! Whenever I get books from there I always feel like I'm leaving another 50 behind that I'd really be interested but just haven't stumbled on them. Thanks for that info, already downloading it now.

If you have a lot of Gutenberg text files you can use the Gutenmark "prettifier" to make them more presentable.
http://www.sandroid.org/GutenMark/download.html
A few years back I d/l'ed the Gutenberg DVD and ran the text files through a series of batch files and converters to end up with a nice collection in MSReader format. (There were "only" 14,000 in those days. I may have to do it again one of these centuries.)

[QuantumIguana]

I am acquiring books at much slower pace than I did when I first got my Kindle a couple years ago. I had around 700 books on my Kindle. I have 20,000 books from Project Gutenberg on my computer.

I recently had to do a factory reset on my Kindle, and now I keep a much smaller number of books on my Kindle.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

I am acquiring books at much slower pace than I did when I first got my Kindle a couple years ago. I had around 700 books on my Kindle. I have 20,000 books from Project Gutenberg on my computer.

I recently had to do a factory reset on my Kindle, and now I keep a much smaller number of books on my Kindle.

I've only got just over 400 ebooks all up, but I only put those that I'm reading on any of my 3 devices because I regard Calibre as my 'Library' and the readers as my library bag that carries the books to read. (We got introduced to the idea of using a library bag in Primary School to protect our books, and then, believe it or not, got taught how to make one in Craft class. Cool eh!)

I've had cause to factory reset each of my devices, BB Playbook, Kobo Glo, and Sony 650 for various reasons and I want one less hassle wondering if all the work I've put into creating shelves and creating other orderliness and organisational attributes will hold up through that process.

I want my reading time dedicated to reading and not sorting out (and then re-sorting out) how my devices display my books.

Everyone eventually comes to their own way of doing things with usage experience, and failures of equipment is a quick learning curve, imo.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Jaede

AaaaaaaH!

It burns my brain. Five thousand is an awesome number. It's half of ten thousand. Oh, how it tortures my OCD. The wife tells me I have more than enough. But five thousand!

No. NO. NOPE! I can't do it. I'd have to start digging into public domain works to reach that number. I technically have enough books to reach said number, but I've tried with my library to only put in authors I might actually read. I'm sure someday when I'm an invalid at ninety, and have lost the will to live I might even read the Twilight Series.

You know if you read one book a day for 11 years you'll run out. I think you probably should have a few extra on hand because yanno. There's just no SECURITY blanket in having only one book a day for 11 years. Some of them might not be that good. And some of them might be short and you might read TWO in a day.

Authorly yours,
Maria

[Anabana]

When is Enough 'Enough'

Never - anything worth doing is worth over-doing.

[Moët]

Enough is enough... When you've tried every book there ever was and ever shall be.

[Jaede]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

You know if you read one book a day for 11 years you'll run out. I think you probably should have a few extra on hand because yanno. There's just no SECURITY blanket in having only one book a day for 11 years. Some of them might not be that good. And some of them might be short and you might read TWO in a day.

Authorly yours,
Maria

I wish I could read a book a day. If they're short then, yes, I can burn through them rather quickly. But a book a day. . . . .it would be awesome. I'd be like that guy on Limitless with the smart pill, absorbing all knowledge like a sponge. I bought that book, by the way. Alan Glynn is the author. Movie based on book usually sucks but in this case I thought the movie was almost better. At least they ended the movie better than they did the book.

And there's another thing that gets me. People often wonder if movies based on books must always suck, but I say they don't have to. Just watch the movie first before reading the book, and your expectations won't be ruined by poor Hollywood adaptation. Learned that after watching Ben Affleck in Phantoms by Dean Koontz.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Well said. The strange desire that some people have to boast about stealing ebooks, as if it's a laudable activity that other people are going to praise, has always baffled me.

It is still not theft. The strange desire some people have to misuse word has always baffled me.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

owning a collection of 62,000 pirated books could be financially catastrophic.

Please point to a case were just having something without having downloaded it or bought it have lead to these consequences. From the cases I have seen it is the distribution that is the problem and not the having it.

[Ralph Sir Edward]

I limit my e-library to 2 GB. (my BeBook One only takes SD chips) currently I have about 1.5 GB on the chip. When it gets to 2GB (who knows when, if ever - I've been at this since 2006), I'll use the "if you want this book, you have to pitch some other book" methodology.

Of course, converting PD titles from HTML and RTF have let me save a lot of space for other titles...