Hello readers! Today’s LTB post centers on Bookish and non-bookish collecting. I did a Book Blogger Hop a year ago now about my non-bookish hobbies, but this is a bit more specific.
I try my best not to collect as many things as I’d like to. It’s just not financially possible, or possible as far as space goes. I love to collect things and have collected a lot of stuff over the years.
As a kid, I loved to collect rocks and keychains. Let’s talk about what I collect now!
Check out my Let’s Talk Bookish Masterlist for every post I’ve done.
Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originated by Eternity Books and is currently hosted by Book Nook Bits and Dinipandareads. The accompanying thumbnail was also designed by Book Nook Bits. Each Friday, bloggers craft posts where they engage in discussions centered around the designated topic for the week.
Prompts: Do you own a lot of books? Do you think of yourself as a book collector? Outside of reading, do you have any other hobbies that involve collecting things? What would you love to have a collection of?
Do I Own a Lot of Books?
I do happen to own a lot of books. If we are only counting physical books and not ebooks or audiobooks. I currently own 394 books. I’ve seen book community members with TBRs bigger than that!
I personally do not allow myself to just buy books at random, unless I’m at a library book sale. I’m cautious about buying books I’ve never heard of because I know more often than not, I won’t read the book.
I am not a book collector in the way I see most people online are. I don’t go out of my way to own special editions of books. Most of the time, I don’t even care if I have a matching set of one series. I buy most of my books used.
Here are my copies of the Percy Jackson series. I have 3 different editions of the books. I also have many series where half are paperback, and the others are hardcovers. For some, those sorts of things matter, but for myself, I don’t care. I mostly center price when I buy books.
I am a collector in the way that I love being surrounded by books, but I also am not in the way that I don’t buy a ton of editions of the same books, or special editions.
Just to be clear, I am not saying one or the other is worse or better. This is just how I do it personally.
What Else Do I Collect?
Mini Brands
One thing I love to collect is mini brands. I don’t collect them as much as I’d like to, as they are getting more and more expensive. However, I do enjoy opening them, organizing them, and even displaying some in my house.
I’ve even made some of them into magnets for my fridge. I bought some tiny magnets off Amazon, and hot-glued them to these mini brands. This was actually very difficult because of the burning hot glue.
Junk
Another thing I love to collect is things for my junk journals. I love to junk journal!
Does anyone junk journal? I used to do it all the time when I was a teen, and really only got back into it in 2025. I love having a little book of memories in items that really only I will understand.
I will take any random item that is usually seen as trash and add it in. An example is last year, when we had s’mores outside on the fire. I decided to do something different and bought some caramel Ghirardelli squares and some white chocolate to make them with. So, I put one of the wrappers for the Ghirardelli squares in there.
I’ve also added small confetti from birthday parties, or even wrappers from my mini brands, or new things I tried. Last year, I tried Ramune in a few flavors, and I tried some new Pocky. So, I added those in.
Last year, when we stayed at the Wolf Lodge in Ohio, I took our bracelets that let us into our rooms and put those in there, too.
I am hoping to start a new one in 2026 that centers on myself and my boyfriend. I saved some things from Valentine’s Day to add, plus all our movie tickets.
Pens
A random thing I started collecting in 2025 was pens. I started buying a bunch of them at the dollar store, then it became a habit.
One of my biggest frustrations with SNHU is the lack of physical books. I don’t want to go back and forth between two screens, so I take notes by hand. Therefore, I use a lot of pens.
Here are just a few of the pens I’ve collected. Some of them no longer work, but I still like to keep them. I’m sure I can refill them down the line.
What Do I Want to Collect?
Something that I used to collect and would like to again in the future is pins. My boyfriend has quite the collection, most of which are on his badge for work, but I bought this thing to hang on the wall this month for both of us to add to it.
The pin of Marie from Aristocats is mine, and so is the Deadpool one. I think the 111 pin is from Fallout, the Sith Lord one is Star Wars, the third pin is Coco from Crash Bandicoot, and then the weapon is something from Halo.
We got the Deadpool/Wolverine ones late last year when we were seeing a movie together. And he gave me the Aristocats one a few weeks ago.
I used to have a ton of pins! I might still have some tucked away somewhere. I was thinking that I could start buying them when we go do fun things together out of state or at museums.
Another thing I’d like to collect is bookish merch. I don’t really have anything bookish outside of books. I’d love to have some character art or bookmarks from series I love.
Do you collect anything outside books?
Happy blogging and bookish adventures! 📚🦒✨
This post was created by Allison Wolfe for www.allithebookgiraffe.com and is not permitted to be posted anywhere else.
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Alli the Book Giraffe 
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