Love to read… constantly. Cannot deal with modern gadgetry like Kindle or what have you… Books have a scent and feel about them-- it’s part of reading-- in my opinion. Anyhow, my wife and I have collected a library of thousands over the years-- so much in fact, that we’ve to store half of them in my Nanny’s basement. Here are my favorite subjects: Napoleonic Wars and French Revolutionary Wars, English/German/Russian/American folks tales and Fairy tales, Occult, Lovecraftian pulp horror Weird Tales, Ghost stories of all kinds, European history both ancient and modern, Herbalism and Gardening, astrology and of course TOBACCO!!!
I also have thousands. Very wide variety. Classics (American, European, eastern), history (world), gardening and home improvement, religion (world), mystery/thriller, tobacciana, science, ETC. Prefer hardbacks, leather when I can…
Much the same as General actually. A lot of Lovecraftian horror, herbalism, folk tales, mythology, horror, and alot occult and paganism related material, as well as a few more…erm…adult themed works including Leonard Nimoy’s Full Body Project and a few books on BDSM techniques.
I spend all my money on tobacco, so I read a lot of books from the library. More recently I read a lot on my tablet. I read a lot of military theme thrillers…Cussler, Griffen, Clancy etc. and Dime novels like the Star Wars/Star Trek books. Since funds are limited I buy very few books. A couple authors I love or a book that I really like. Mostly history, WW2 and gun related books. Basically they have to be important enough to me to be worth spending money, and more importantly , be something I will read more than a few times. I have @ 300 that fit that category, built up over 30 years.
My library consists of mostly field guides, nature, astronomy and dinosaur books
LOTS of Orthodox Theology, most of my college textbooks, quite a few books about the walking stick as a martial arts weapon, general reference and recreational reading. I’ve been downsizing my library with every move. Now that I have Kindle, it’s much easier to take books with me when I go on retreat at the monastery… Some of my prayer books and spiiritual books are very bulky and difficult to take with me when I travel. I’ve had my Kindle for a few months and I already have about 130 books on it.
Just knocked out the entire encyclopedic set of Tales of France, Rome, Scotland and India… It’s a 4 volume set published in Britain in the '40’s… Very nice and beautifully illustrated
I have thousands as well. They reflect my changing and evolving interests over time. I too prefer hardcovers, and leather when I can get it. I haven’t bought many books in the last several years,mainly due to funds, but my reading backlog still is full. I have several Easton Press leather book collections. My dad started me on those on my 21st birthday with the 100 greatest books ever written set. One book a month for about 8 years. What a great present! So aside from classic literature, I have lots of sci-fi; pretty much everything by or about Tolkien; Irish-Scottish-Celtic history, literature, language, mythology etc.; nature; gardening; geography; maritime and lots of nautical/navigation textbooks (my profession); political stuff/philosophy mostly Chomsky-Hedges kind of thing. Quite a lot more really. Oddly I only have one book on tobacciana: Snuff and Snuff Boxes by Hugh McCausland that @Abraxas recommended to me. I picked it up on ebay for a steal. I also have a sizeable comic book collection. It was primarily Spider-Man focused for years, but has since moved on to more independent type comics.
Every word Jack Kerouac ever wrote and many of the other Beats and characters of inspiration like Camus, Bukowski, Nietzsche, along with a plethora of topographical maps and trail guides.
Should count them someday, I suppose. Got most of Stephen King in HC (drive by his house in Bangor, once in a while). A good share of Louis Lamour’s works, All of James Clavell’s (not many, but take a while to get through them), the Sherlock Holmes canon (read several times, along with many of his other works) and most of Donald Hamilton’s works (currently re-reading the Matt Helm series–on number 14 of the 27 volume canon. Nice that they are finally coming back into print). I also frequent Project Gutenberg for public domain works–I enjoy Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack London, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, etc. I’ve read about all the public domain works on tabacco and just bought the latest copy of PDF copy of Snuff Empheris. I do prefer physical books over e-books, but they are handy.
Oh yes, there are definitely books in there. 
To be more specific, Lovecraft and his ilk; Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth etc, loads of horror ( up 'til the 90’s - I gave up in the era of Stephen King and Dean Koontz apparently being able to write them faster than I could read them) and science fiction, mainly from classic authors such as Eric Frank Russell (great writer of both serious, thrilling sci-fi, and humorous sci-fi. Ever read Next Of Kin? Brilliant book, and very funny), Jack Williamson, Henry Kuttner, etc. I also have a lot of autobiographies and biographies, and a complete set of Anthony Buckeridge’s ‘Jennings’ children’s books, which are still funny even read as an adult. Oh, and many of the Badger Books series ‘Supernatural Stories’ a lot of which are almost unreadable, being written at a rate of knots by Lionel Fanthorpe under various pseudoplumes (or non-de-nyms), but the covers are wonderful. http://www.peltorro.com/gallery.htm http://www.peltorro.com/index.htm
@Xander Exactly – the reflection on evolving and developing interest-- my books are a story in and of themselves, like your own. You’ll notice that’s why it’s necessary to have a “What’s in… Library” in addition to “What… Reading?” – Sci-Fi… I need to post a pic of the '60’s Lovecraft, Bradbury, Blackwood and more that wife and I have amassed – love the cover art on those. For Christmas, about 10 years ago, my daughter bought my wife and I “The Art of Imagination” – a HUGE coffee table-type book.with like tens of thousands full color prints from Weird Tales, Argosy, Tales of Fantasy and all the others… If you ever get the opportunity, flip through it-- very neat book.
@HRpufnsnuff Creepy-- we were posting the above at the same time —
I am starting to wonder if there is a link between snuff taking and Lovecraftian fiction 
Lovecraftian fiction? I must look into this. Any recommendations for a beginner in the subject?
Ahh…H.P. Lovecraft
porn, but only for the pictures =)) Kidding mostly spiritual, herbal,magical mumbo jumbo,metaphysical. I do have some Walt Whitman. Mostly I read subjects on the WWW. Shit load of recovery material. I rather interact then get buried in books.Sorry I could do without collecting. I do encourage it since i am the grapevine rep for my district and sell the books not the magazine.
@basement_shaman You are a VERY interesting fellow.
Far too many books on a wide variety of subjects. I am just in the process of installing even more bookcases. Over the years I have been forced to severely cull my book collection on many occasions without which I would have required a mansion to hold them all! Subject matter: Reference works, spiritual works of all denominations and none, fiction being mainly thrillers, fantasy and scifi and - of course - HP Lovecraft!
Culling over 1,000 books from our library this week— all read and should go to the next person down the line— you should see the boxes in the living room— completely outrageous-- guilty of packrat-ism completely