from the associated press

Thousands of books pile up in Michigan collector's home

It has taken Free Soil woman between 25 and 30 years to collect 20,000
volumes.

Associated Press

FREE SOIL -- Pages are constantly turning at Violet Buss' home. Buss loves
to read and has the collection of books to prove it.

"Last time I counted, a few years ago, I had 12,000," she said. "Right now,
I know my collection must be near 20,000."

She's been reading since she was 4 years old, and her father used to read
her the newspaper comics. Her book collection is 25 to 30 years in the
making, and she said she's backed off from spending $200-$300 at a time on
books; she has almost 2,000 of just one book variety.

"I thought that was getting to be a bit much," she said. "I have one room
right now that has most of them in it; some are in boxes because I haven't
read them yet.

"I just haven't had time."

Buss has another room, which has bookshelves on each wall, where she sets up
a Christmas village. "They're all full, three to four deep," she said.

Buss estimates that she has about 1,000 books she hasn't read yet, in part
because she had some vision problems while she was in the middle of
acquiring some books and had to store them.

Once the problems ceased, she started reading again, but still has many
pages to turn.

"I plan on retiring next year, so I'll have plenty of time to read," she
said. "I'll bring all the boxes down and get them done in two weeks.

"If I sit down and put my mind to it, I can read three or four books in an
afternoon; it doesn't take long to get through them."

It helps that Buss can speed read.

"I don't read word by word, I read by phrases," she said. "If something
doesn't make sense, I can go back and look again.

"My mother was my teacher all the time I was growing up, and she emphasized
reading; it (speed reading) was just something I picked up as I went along,
because when you got your work done, you could read, but you didn't have
much time."

Though she says her collection is somewhat disorganized, Buss keeps a
computerized catalog of the books she owns and, of those, which ones she's
read.

"Each time I get any books, I put them in the computer," she said. "I have
the author and the title of the book, so I always know what I have and what
I've read.

"The ones in a series I put in numerical order."

In her catalog, Buss can input a specific author and find the titles she
owns, and she has a miscellaneous file for books under specific headings,
like "family."

"I try to keep them pretty well organized," she said. "If I find a book and
think, 'Have I read it or haven't I?' I can go back and look."

Even with thousands of books on her shelves, Buss can usually remember what
she's read; she's read some of her books two or three times.

"When you read as many as I have, it can be hard to remember," she said.
"But most of the time, if I read the back or the first page or two, I can
tell you the story."

She can even remember the first books she read when she was young. "I
started out reading the 'Black Beauty' series," she said. "And another
author that wrote a lot about nature, about different animals. They were
just really interesting; he had some really nice books.

"There was a little library in Reed City, where I grew up, and I think I
read every book they had."

When Buss' four children, all of whom also enjoy reading, were growing up,
she said she took often them to the Ludington and Scottville libraries.

"I think I read half of those (books), too," she said.

She said her daughters have read many of her books but that her son enjoyed
westerns and fantasy books.

"I think all boys like those," she said.

Buss said she went through a phase when she enjoyed biographies and read
every one she could get her hands on. Then she said she outgrew those and
moved on to romance novels.

"I like the romance and the intrigue," she said. "I like the Harlequin
series, mysteries, anything."

Buss has one series of Harlequin books, from book one, that are now
discontinued, called Mystique. The series is historical and the books are
mysteries.

"They're really good books," Buss said.

"After a while they went to historicals that were longer books, but they
didn't have the same quality."