Hoard as many as you can, you never know when one you're looking for will be available again.

Close to 1/4 of my collection is TBR and my list of books I’m interested in acquiring is unknowably long at this point. For reference my collection is north of 1000.

The cautionary example I’ll give is that my taste in novels have changed. I went from a genre fiction reader to a reader of literature. Nonfiction mostly stayed the same. So many of the genre fiction books I picked up and didn’t get to I no longer have an inclination to read in large quantities.

Some book interests will never change and some could. If you recognize your likely trends you’re good. Depending on price constraints I’d use some caution but not too much lol. If you pick up 10 books for a buck like at some book sales go hog wild by all means!

Periodically I’ll pick up Franklin Library or Folio editions of a few favorites or if they slip through the cracks for cheap.

If you can afford to & if you have the space for them, live out the bibliophile's dream & buy them all now, en masse, then start saving up for any special editions you'd like.

(ETA some words)

That is good cautionary advice. My tastes could change. I wouldn't be going all in on any specific genre. I'd say a good mixture between fantasy, science fiction and the good ol classics.

However if down the line my tastes do change, I'd have reason to buy even more books!!!!

I’d say classics are the safest best. And then the classics of sci fi and fantasy as well. Ones that even if you don’t love them you’ll be glad you read them.

Ohhh not to worry. There is never a lack of reasons to buy more books 😂 Each new one opens the door to at least a handful of others.

I'd personally buy a few nicer editions of books I know I love/have been coveting if I had a chunk of change devoted just to books laying around. I'm good at saving money but bad at giving myself permission to spend a lot of money on one item. I'll happily spend $50 on 5 books (what a steal!) but spending $50 on one book would make me pause. Also not sure what your financial situation is but if you usually don't have as much money to spend on books it's worth considering how long you'd have to save/restrain from buying other books to buy the nicer editions you want.

It can also just be fun to pick up a few cheaper books you know you want every once in a while (as opposed to a ton at once). Feels a lot easier to say 'ive wanted this book for a while and now I have it' then to say 'ah yes I just spent x amount of money on books I've never seen before'.

I'm moving between continents next month. It's definitely not great for the luggage situation that I bought so many books over the last few years.

I don't see any issue with you buying the 35 at once, if it's like the one big buy a year that's fine. It it really depends on the book as I would try to get the special edition when buying one at a time as a way to pace myself

You don't want to see my to-be-read piles. There are currently 11, and some of them are nearly as tall as me.

If you plan to actually read them, don’t bother getting first editions.
If you’re more frugal, put your list into ThriftBooks.com or similar and buy them over time as cheap, good condition copies pop up. It sounds like you’re not pressed for time, so I’d suggest doing this

All the books.

Book sales at libraries

Personally I buy one book only after I finish the last. I don't have a backlog. But I id you are happy collecting. Go ahead.

Yes! Life doesn't always tread along in a predictable rhythm. Today you are busy making money, the day will come when you have time to read. Also use something like wooden apple crates to put your books in, they stack good as a book case as your library grows. On moving day you just need a Trash bag to cover the top and the move is done.

And little free libraries in your area, they can be found at LFL website, world map.

I recommend not buying them all at once, at some point you will lose interest since you got to what you wanted so fast and you’ll end up not reading as much as you did before

I actually have my list on thriftbooks. I was considering doing multiple orders to take advantage of the rewards for free books.

There's nothing wrong with it in general, but for me having the books in my house would make me feel like I have to read all of them asap and would make reading into a chore. For me reading should be about the journey, not the destination.

Personally what I do is, I do have a TBR list on Goodreads, but I usually buy 8-10 books at a time. Then I get new ones when I'm almost done with my 8-10 books. This way there are always unread books on my nightstand to choose from, but I don't have the unread books stacking up and making me feel guilty about not yet reading them.

But if you're a young person looking to fill their first bookshelf, I can imagine how that's different for you!

This is tough. I feel like special editions are something you invest in when you are collecting and want to to keep the books in pristine condition for display. If you're going to read them, I would say buy regular copies so if anything happens to them you're not destroying a coveted first edition on accident.

Before you invest in a huge haul, I'd think about what you actually want out of this library. If it's purely aesthetic, or whether or not you actually want to read all of these titles. If you are planning on reading them all, I'd suggest maybe only buying a few at a time, so you're motivated to read through every title so you can increase your collection. This is also a better way to go about it if your list changes over time. i.e., if you buy a big haul now and you lose interest in some of these books because you get hooked on another genre before you finish reading through your collection, you may find you end up never reading some of the titles at all.

If you purchase and read one or two books at a time, you can really tailor your collection to suit your tastes and interests as it changes over time.

The special editions would be books I already own and would be purely display. These being LoTR and or various Ray Bradbury books. I already have a 1st edition of Fahrenheit 451.

Personally I find it harder to read books the longer I’ve owned then so I try not to buy too many at the same time and instead buy a couple, read them, buy some more and so on

I have a big TBR at home and it overwhelmed me sometimes because i keep buying new books i want to read.

I would recommend buying like 5 books at a time and when you have read them buying new ones you want to read. Then you dont have to go buy a new one after everybook you read and your home TBR isnt that big

Oh I love Fahrenheit 451 <3. Color me jealous, lol!

This is definitely hard then. I don't personally collect special editions because I am running exceptionally low on real estate for my books. However, I love and admire special editions, especially when you have the space to properly display them. I wonder if you could get a few special editions, and then splurge a little on a smaller number of new books to add to your collection so you get the best of both worlds.

This might be my best option.

I love a good library sale! One caveat is this usually works best with standalones. I haven't had any luck picking up a series this way. YMMV.

I think it depends on your personal and financial situation. For example, if you have a book budget, would this blow the budget so you'd have no money for impulse buys later on?

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Please if you buy new try and support a local bookstore. They can usually find what you want even if it's not in shop.

I usually do Half Priced Books for a lot, but for when I want brand new I go out of my to the local place as they are so knowledgable and fun to walk around.

98% of the books I have already are from either HPB or a smaller book store near me called book rack. Almost never do I buy new. Always support local if you can.

If ever you think your TBR list is too long, think of the random Sith on reddit who has 127 waiting as we speak with three more pre-ordered for the next few months.

I love being surrounded by books, so I would say go big!

I keep track of the books I want to read by adding them to a shopping cart on my local bookstore’s website. Every few months I’ll purchase everything in the cart, usually around 20 books, and those will be on my TBR bookshelf while I take a few months to fill up the shopping cart again.

I like having a variety of books to choose from, and keeping about 20 books on my TBR shelf gives me options. If I lose interest in a book I’m reading I can just put it back on the shelf and pick up something else to read, returning to it when the time’s right.

I usually find parts of a series that way and other parts of the series at later times. Depends on the series, though. Trashy YA like House of Night is relatively easy to find, I guess because people don't want to hold on to them. But very beloved series either don't get donated as much, and/or get picked up by other people very quickly.

For the stuff I don't find at those sales, I put it on my shopping list.

Try your local library. Normally they have sales at least once a year. You may find some of the books there for a discounted price as long as you are good with "used" books. Some libraries also sell first edition books. These may be offered to "friends" of the library before the general public though. If these are books you have not read yet I would recommend getting them cheap first. After reading then you can decide which one one you want in a first edition and look for a good copy.

Go nuts!

Every time I find parts of series, they don't match. Some books may be hardbacks and others paperbacks. I'm particular, so I like them to match. Lol.

I have a wall of books. Sadly I am a book junkie. Everything is interesting, yet there are so many now sitting unread. I am Trying this year to start reading ones I know I don’t want or need to keep. Then I’ll move on to the keepers. So, my advice. Read what you have first.

Not If you can afford to!

Totally valid! For me, it depends on the series and how attached I am to it. The more attached, the more pretty I want it to sit on my shelves.

Personally, I set my limit to buying 3 to 5 books a month. Not because I couldn't afford more, but my interests in books, authors and genres shifts every now and then.

Last year, I was really into magic realism, not soon after in late Victorian fiction, Modernism and then Gothic Fiction. This year started with a deep adoration for American novels of the 20th century - mostly William Faulkner - and just a week ago, I fell in love with Pynchon's the Crying of lot 49.

So, just go with the flow and embark into your wonderful journey of discovering books. Pick what captivates you most at a given time and more books will follow.

In the past I bought more than I could read. Now I have books on my TBR that I don't want to read anymore because I'm a different reader then I was 5 years ago. But it's your money and if you believe you'll still be interested in reading them in the future, then go for it.

I like to buy my books slowly. If only because I love to pick carefully. Different versions, different printings. Different translators.

For example, I want Les Mis. But I want the Donougher translation. In hardcover. Unfortunately that combination is very inflated in price. So I’m waiting. Half hoping for a Folio Society version. Translation can be a huge issue and many classics have many translations.

When I’m selecting books, I want the right version for me. One I’ll be proud to have. In the selection process I tend to find versions I like, those I don’t and sometimes it switches. For example I was looking for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I want the folio society version (but am unwilling to pay the hundreds it goes for these days. But I found the First Edition Library version with slipcase that I like a lot and was able to find cheap-ish.

I feel like if you just go to Amazon or b&n and add and purchase en masse you miss out on the selection process and may not get the best picks for your money.

If you’re going to just pick quickly either way, then getting them all at once sounds fun.

If you can comfortably afford it and you want to, then sure. Do it.