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Joshua Goldhar, 83, has been collecting books since he was a boy, having amassed an estimated 12,000 books over the span of three-quarters of a century.

“Sometimes I look around and say, ‘How did I get all these books?'” said Goldhar, laughing. “I wonder myself; I do it more or less in a trance.”

Now, he says, he’s ready to give them all away.

“There is a reluctance, but I realize that I will not live long enough to fulfill my ambition to read them all,” Goldhar said.

“I will give them away with a certain sadness, but also aware that I will bring the book a new friend and a new lover and someone who will enjoy [it], which is what the book and author would really like.”

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Goldhar ‘s second-storey Toronto apartment is filled to the ceiling with stacks upon stacks of books.

Over time, he said he’s given a few thousand books away to friends or donated them to charitable causes. Still, that left more than half of the amount to look after in his small living space.

Joshua Goldhar, 83, has been collecting thousands of books and now is ready to donate them all. Kamil Karamali / Global News

“They accumulated unconsciously or without my intention,” said Goldhar. “I’ve found so many interesting books and I don’t have the heart to toss them out.

“I keep them and keep them.”

Goldhar said his obsession began when his father would take him to a bookstore as a child and he would be free to buy as many volumes as he wished.

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The avid reader argues that while his apartment may look like a mess of random books, many of them are arranged into piles or stacks based on their genre and whether he’s read them or not.

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“I do not always finish the book,” said Goldhar. “I dip into it and I read enough to capture the spirit and flavour and style of the book.

“If I really like it, I get through to the end.”

Goldhar said he often reads the first few chapters and then looks up the synopsis of the book’s plot online.

“If I was to read every one of them, I would go bonkers. To do a great good, you have to do a little evil, so I do a little cheating.” Tweet This

But now, with his health deteriorating due to his age and a lack of room to move around freely in his apartment, Goldhar knows his story is reaching its final chapter.

He’s hoping to donate many of the books this weekend ⁠— and to give almost all of them away by this summer.

One of the organizations that will benefit from Goldhar’s donations is Project 99A, a not-for-profit that takes unwanted books and distributes them throughout the York region and abroad.

The organization’s founder, Josephine Vacarro-Chang, said many books will also go to the British Virgin Islands, which were ravaged by hurricanes in 2018.

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“I felt like I won the lottery, it’s fantastic,” said Vacarro-Chang.

“The hurricanes did a lot of structural damage ⁠— the floods got the books wet, the books were ruined and now their booksshelves are virtually empty.”

Goldhar said he also has other groups in mind to which he will pass along the books, including the University of Toronto and Trinity College.