Starting a Book Collection

Since I was young I’ve always been reading books. I was a single child, who loved reading and my family were very happy to leave me to read while they had their adult conversations. I read at home, in the car, I always took a book when we went for family meals. Plus, my family would always buy me books for Christmases and Birthdays. So now that I’m 21, I have quite a large collection of books already (about 700 the last time I checked). My whole collection is an eclectic mix of genres and authors, but I have been trying to ‘collect’ certain authors or editions to fit into this in recent years. And if you’re new to reading and you’re also interested (and have the room and budget for) in collecting books then I have some ideas on where you could start.

By Genre

The most obvious collection is collecting books from one genre. This could be an overarching ‘Fantasy’ genre or you can make it more niche and say you want to collect ‘Epic Fantasy’ or ‘Fairytales’. If you really enjoy a certain genre this is a good one for most people, and you will naturally start this kind of collection if you are interested in just a handful of genres. For example, most of the books from when I was younger are all fantasy based but now I have staretd to branch out and my reading tastes have expanded I have thrillers, horror and sci-fi books as well.

By Author

Some authors just have the writing style and the ideas that you will love. So collecting all their books to read, is usually a good idea as you normally will know that you’re going to like the book. A lot of people collect Stephen King books (including me) and people like Agatha Christie who has over 100 works under her belt are ambitious collections. Then there’s authors who you come across and just enjoy so much you hunt out their other books. So I always buy Holly Black’s books because I loved reading The Spiderwick Chronicles.

By Editions

Some books, especially classics, have so many different covers from the different publishers and time periods that they were published in. You can collect certain editions of books such as the Penguin Little Black Classics or Penguin’s Clothbound classics. I could argue that this is usually a more aesthetic form of collection, as each edition is normally the same inside. And I actually have a small collection of the Little Black Classics now because I love that they’re small enough to drop into my handbag and I can always carry a book. You can also collect books only in paperback or hardback editions because you may prefer that reading format.

Niche Topic

A lot of different books can encompass one topic. For example, I have so many books about Harry Potter that aren’t the actual books. You could really pick any topic and you could collect books around it. It could be about watercolor paintings in the UK, or it could be historical books about Mary Queen of Scots. If you have a big interest in something then it’s always a nice way to surround yourself with the knowledge.

By Awards

You could pick book awards that are catered for books you enjoy. So the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize’s Older Fiction category has a lot of YA included so I could potentially collect all the shortlisted (or longlisted!) books. Or you could use the Pullitzer Prize for fictions books. This is also a really good way to collect books that you may not have heard of as much. They usually have a wider range of books than going by author or editions.

By Book

If you’ve ever watched bookshelf tours on youtube, you’ve probably come across people who collect one book across multiple editions. Or even one series across editions. Again this is more of a aesthetic collection than wanting to read them all. This could also mean collecting the same book in different languages. One of the better ways to learn a new language is to read and try to understand that language.

By Year

Some people collect by year of publication. I know when it comes to comics and graphic novels, people enjoy discussing which were the ‘golden years’ of those characters and then they will often collection a specific series that are from that time. It also happens with different genre books, it’s always a topic of discussion as to when the best sci-fi books and fantasy books were released. And again this is normally a personal opinion, as in you could really love fantasy books written in the 1980’s because it’s nostalgic for when you grew up and your love of reading started.

Or Something a bit different…

All of the above might still not be for you. You might want to collect all the books that are referenced in Gilmore Girls, or a different media that you love. It could be that you’re really intrigued by Irish authors and so have a collection of books from them. Collecting books can be really personal to you, it should always be books you like to read and therefore you can cater it towards your likes and dislikes. For example, I really enjoy high fantasy books, but if I read one and I don’t like it, I’m not going to collect the rest of the series because I know I’m not going to read it.