Keepers and non-keepers

Looks like I share something with one of my favourite authors, Jonathan Carroll:

A library recently asked me to give them the five books that have mattered most to me. I wrote back saying sorry, but I don't keep books I have already read. In one of those "people are divided into two groups" distinctions, I have a feeling readers are divided into two camps on this matter-- those who keep their books, and those who give them away once they're read. Talking to someone about this, they were horrified I didn't at least own copies of books that were especially important to me. I could only shrug and say again 99% of the books I own I haven't read yet.

The quote is from his May 21st blog entry. I'm definitely in the "give them away" camp, and BookMooch has been a blessing for me (funny this came up, as I just read about Bookmooching at Adventures in Reading and wrote a long comment there about the joys of BookMooch).

My library isn't quite 99% unread, but that would be a good state, yes, especially for fiction books.