Trying to Cut Back on Books

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I have a decent collection of books. I find that, depending on my circumstances, the books that I don't read eventually come in handy. Maybe I'm going through something or the Lord is growing me in a certain area, eventually books I bought and ignored become important.
 
Books are a blessing from the Lord!

But, I as well need to cut back. Hehe
Using the same logic as some use for children:

If books are a blessing from the Lord, then you should try to get as many books as possible and not try and prevent the Lord from blessing you.
 
I have a lot of books I haven't read yet, but I received a call from an old friend who was getting rid of his books-- for free! (I offered to pay and he refused.) I left a lot behind, but here is what I brought home.


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Nice!! I've been trying to find those 2 William Cunningham volumes on Historical Theology, and it seems they're hard to come by (that particular edition at least; there are some of those cheap OCR reprints out there, apparently, which I won't bother with...)
 
I have a decent collection of books. I find that, depending on my circumstances, the books that I don't read eventually come in handy. Maybe I'm going through something or the Lord is growing me in a certain area, eventually books I bought and ignored become important.

My wife is always nagging me about my books! "When are you EVER going to read ALL THESE BOOKS!?!"

My response: "they're for reference, not reading."

Not entirely untrue either, since I just had to dust off my copy of Richard Muller's Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms to look up all these Latin terms that Charles Hodge is throwing at me in his Systematic Theology!
 
I have a book buying problem too. I doubled my house size when I moved to Texas a couple years ago. The whole upstairs is books. Sadly, I still regularly buy books.
I guess I was always hoping that when I got married and had a family, I would get to share all this with them. The thought of family worship seems wonderful to me. But the Lord had other plans...
 
Part of me thinks it’s good that I have amassed so many books in the past couple of years because I do so much research into good books and very very rarely regret purchasing a book. Now I have the best books to last a lifetime (and I’m still young).
But another part of me gets overwhelmed with the task ahead of working through them all (aside from the purely reference works, of which there are few). Knowing that my current reading habits are pitiful, should I simply go cold turkey in buying any more?
 
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Part of me thinks it’s good that I have amassed so many books in the past couple of years because I do so much research into good books and very very rarely regret purchasing a book. Now I have the best books to last a lifetime (and I’m still young).
But another part of me gets overwhelmed with the task ahead of working through them all (aside from the purely reference works, of which there are few). Knowing that my current reading habits are pitiful, should I simply go cold turkey in buying any more?
Of the books you have, what are your favorites?
 
What books did you order? I'm always looking for suggestions.

Henry James's collected autobiographical writings (Library of America series)
Eric G. Wilson's new biography of Charles Lamb
"The March of Literature: From Confucius's Day to Our Own" (1939) by Ford Madox Ford (his last book)
Robert Hawker's "poor man's" daily devotional book (just reprinted again by Reformation Heritage Books)
The reprint of Carl Trueman's 1998 book, "The Claims of Truth: John Owen's Trinitarian Theology" (by RHB)
 
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But another part of me gets overwhelmed with the task ahead of working through them all (aside from the purely reference works, of which there are few). Knowing that my current reading habits are pitiful, should I simply go cold turkey in buying any more?
I’ve amassed quite a few books in the past year and have found that I’m overwhelmed more often than not when I continue to heap books into my library. I’ve vowed this year not to purchase any new books for myself unless required reading for seminary. It’s not that I don’t read what I buy, it’s just that I want more books than I physically have time to read. Personally, I would attribute this to covetousness. I can vouch that I feel better about my reading plans for the year knowing that I will actually make progress with what I already have in my library. This to me has been more satisfying than the alternative as well as a step in the right direction of dying to self.
 
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Of the books you have, what are your favorites?

I’m still very early in my reading journey hopefully. I think the most impactful were mostly my favourites - John Owen on Temptation, Thomas Watson on Repentance, Packer’s ‘Knowing God’, AW Pink’s ‘Attributes of God’, Walter Marshall on sanctification.. oh , Goodwin on the Heart of Christ is perhaps my most favourite.
 
I’ve amassed quite a few books in the past year and have found that oftentimes I’m overwhelmed more often than not when I continue to heap books into my library. I’ve vowed this year not to purchase any new books for myself unless required reading for seminary. It’s not that I don’t read what I buy, it’s just that I want more books than I physically have time to read. Personally, I would attribute this to covetousness. I can vouch that I feel better about my reading plans for the year knowing that I will actually make progress with what I already have in my library. This to me has been more satisfying than the alternative as well as a step in the right direction of dying to self.

You bring up a very important point about our proclivity or propensity to covet. I wrestled with greed for some time with regards to books.
 
UPDATE:

Well, that lasted ten whole days! LOL

I've got five books showing up to my home just this week.

Sigh.
I was going to ask you how that was working out for you. Now I know. :cool: It's hard, isn't it? I am limited by funds at the moment. With inflation going through the roof, economizing is becoming a necessity.
 
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