I totally get that and still feel that way to an extent. My compromise is to create a Bookpedia record of all of my books before they leave the house.

I tend to think of my library as a record of my intellectual history. Yes, I know, that huge stack of Terry Pratchetts is not what you’d call great or important literature, but somehow it’s still important to me to have them around. I read them, I think of them in some small way as part of who I am.

In general I’m only amenable to getting rid of a book if I hated it (preferably so much I never bothered to finish it).

Funnily though, if I loan a book to someone and it doesn’t come back, I tend to shrug and say, “Never mind.”