Years ago I used to own about 2000 books. I grew up surrounded by books as my mum is a book lover also. Even now she keeps buying them, although she has no time to even browse them. Since I started working at the library, and considering the lack of space, I stopped trying to gather the books and I just borrow anything I want to read. I still manage to collect on my library ticket between 10-30 books at a time (I would take out more if they made the limit higher). I can't justify spending the money when it costs me nothing to request whatever I want from the library. I probably will start buying some when my living situation changes.