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I'm not trying to say there is an absolute value for "too many books." That will vary from situtation to situation and personality to personality.
But if you're feeling that they're in the way of how you want to live then that is probably a good indicator.
If you want to cut them down a bit, just be brutally honest in answering these question:
1. If someone had asked me if I owned this book would have have known the answer. (A lot of people have books they don't even remember they have; that's probably a candidate for disposal).
2. Will I ever read/reread this book. Be honest. If you've had a book for years and never read it, odds are you never will. If its been years since you read it, odds are you aren't going to reread it.
3. Does this book contain information that would be difficult to replace? And is it at all likely that I'll use that information (the 2000 media guide for the Oakland Athletics, maybe; the 2000 media guide for the Milwaukee Brewers, nope).
4. If I got rid of this book and suddenly the desire came up to read it again, would it be difficult to get again? A 1948 local history, maybe. A John Grisham paperback not at all.
5. Does it have any artifactual value (first editions, autographed, etc.)
6. Does it have any sentimental value. If so, what is that value. Is it valid sentiment?
In helping people work through their personal libraries I've found that most of the time the argument for keeping a book will fall into question six. And that when said out loud, that support frequently (though obviously not always) crumbles.
I have books that I know I'll reread, or that have information it is otherwise difficult to get, that are valuable as objects or have some sentimental value (a cheap ass pseudo-leather collected works of Twain that was my Christmas present in 1984; a book where Lani is thanked in the acknowledgements). But I don't have any books that I honestly know I won't read, that can easily be reacquired, have no object value, and have no good sentimental attachments.
For example, I reread Stephen R. Donald's Chronicles of Thomas Covenanent series six or seven years. But they are cheap paperbacks easily acquired so I don't actually keep them in the house and get rid of them when I'm done reading. And then five or six years later buy them again. But I haven't read Sagan's A Demon-Haunted World in a decade but will always keep a copy simply because it was an instrumental text in my intellectual development.
The answers vary infinitely but a lot of people when asked "why do you have that" will answer "because it's a book" as if that is a meaningful answer. Try the same excuses for keeping every pair of underwear you've ever owned.
Has anybody seen Clean Sweep on TLC? I love that show for the brutality it has in showing cluttered people just how pointless most of their stuff is and how their possessions come to own them. Maybe they've done it but I'd love to see how they'd handle a book accumulator.
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