I don't know... I own on the order of thousands of books (don't have an exact number, can't be bothered to count / catalog them all), and it can be fairly inconvenient, depending on the circumstances. In my own case, I own more books than can comfortably fit in my apartment, which means one of the biggest motivations I have to rent a bigger apartment, or buy a house, is to suit my books. And since my books have long since overflowed the amount of shelf space I have available, they wind up stacked up around the place, which gives my place a cluttered feel.
Moving is also a bitch with all these books. Books can be friggin' heavy.
That said, I still mostly agree with pg that books are different from random "stuff." I treasure my books (well, ok, maybe not that copy of "OLE DB Programming in C++") and figure having too many books is far less severe a sin than, say, a crack cocaine addiction.
However, I don't put books in to the same category of visual clutter. When I look at a messy room or garage, overflowing with stuff, it makes me unhappy. Even after it's better organized, I still feel a little unhappy realizing that so much storage space is taken up by stuff.
Books do feel different. I enjoy seeing them, the sight of a lot of books is actually a little relaxing. They don't stress me out the way other kinds of stuff does.
Sounds like you have a lot of books stacked around... I could see how it might get to the point where you're feeling cluttered. And the main reason I like getting books from the library isn't so much that I don't have to pay for it but that I don't have to find a place to put it after I'm done.
I know the feeling, but a friend showed me the Container Store's "Elfa" shelving, which is pretty easy to install and provides seven to eight individual shelves in a particular space.
You can see a picture of my setup midway down this page: https://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/january-2012-links...
That said, I could get rid of some of these books... especially older tech books that aren't relevant, either because they're plain out of date, or because I've made a conscious decision to move away from that technology, or both. For example, I have a lot of older books on various Microsoft / Windows technologies like COM, DCOM, ADO, OLE, etc. Frankly, it's very unlikely I'll ever use that stuff again.
> http://my.safaribooksonline.com
I'm definitely thinking about signing up for a Safari subscription soon.
Just generic ones from Office Depot. I have four big ones (3x6 or so?) and one smaller one hanging in my living room (which is more of an office for the startup right now, than it is a "living room").
They're large, heavy, cumbersome objects. They're just more objects to be packed, carried, and worried about.
People with junk cars can't afford to ditch them, not can afford to have more cars than rick people.
Most of what us non-poor people can't throw away is either sentimental, rare, or a major investment (a pool in your backyard, for instance) that can't be easily recouped.
In short, if you feel that you have a choice in the matter, that's what wealth is.
Heh ... when I was a poor grad student, my old car died while I was far away doing an internship. I was freaked out when I saw how much some companies charged to dispose of the non-working cars. Then, I came across this charity.
In my case, I ended up getting the car to work again. Yay!
I have too much stuff. Most people in America do. In fact, the poorer people are, the more stuff they seem to have. Hardly anyone is so poor that they can't afford a front yard full of old cars.