Book Lovers May Identify with This

Okay, like many of you, I love books. And because I work with the Friends of the Library, I help sort donated books weekly. Which means I get first crack at buying wonderful books for a very nominal cost. So I bring home books weekly--to add to the collection of the many I already have.

But I want to re-decorate my office/guest room. And to paint, I need to move a bookcase filled to the brim with--you guessed it--books. Lots of wonderful, albeit dusty, books living in the rattan bookcase that's impossible to dust.

So over the last two days, I went through that bookcase, book by book. Made three stacks: keep, donate, discard. Worked really hard to keep the "keep" pile small.

Long story short, today I lugged, with help of DH, six large bags of books to the library. I donated them from whence they came. Full circle.

And that wonderful rattan bookcase--that major dust collector--is going to be donated to a local organization that helps addicts not be addicts any more. Maybe I won't be sneezing so much anymore with the dust collector gone?

The books I'm keeping will be moved downstairs to the living room, to the book cases that I also purged. I've reduced my book collection by two-thirds. I feel much, much lighter.

I love books, but there are new books coming in all the time. Going to do my best not to re-populate my shelves...

Did I read this observation here??: "Books are not trophies." That helped me a lot. Don't have prove I'm smart or cool just because I have a lot of books.

I can identify with the clean-out of books which I did in a big move. I have two bookcases with favourite books and my Great Courses CD's collection.

I finally realized that I have a library 5 minutes away, access to interlibrary loans and friends with books to loan. That realization has helped me keep the book volumes down to a reasonable number.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HappyHiker

Did I read this observation here??: "Books are not trophies." That helped me a lot. Don't have prove I'm smart or cool just because I have a lot of books.

---

Great point. I went to a friend's house once for a party and her husband had built bookcases, floor to ceiling, in every room. And every shelf was wall-to-wall books! All I could think of was, what happens when they have to move?? What a pain to move all those books!! And I remember thinking just what you are suggesting: "Boy, this guy really wants us to think he's smart!"

Ebooks have made it possible for me to have books without filling more bookshelves.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JaneV2.0

Ebooks have made it possible for me to have books without filling more bookshelves.

---

Same here, our physical book library is down to maybe a hundred or so, although the e-book library numbers in the thousands.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alan

Same here, our physical book library is down to maybe a hundred or so, although the e-book library numbers in the thousands.

---

Wonderful, Alan. That's my goal, too. Still have to pare them down by about 200...but I've made happy progress...had to laugh at myself--I discovered I have about 10 books on how to write and publish but yet I've not worked on my book-in-progress for several months...maybe I should get rid of those books and get busy!

With our last few moves I downsized books to:

About 5-6 photo albums
2 yearbooks
One book written by my great uncle filled with family history
3-4 thin paperbacks with family history and photos from other branches of my ancestors

And I think that’s all the books in our entire house.

However - my kindle app has hundreds.

I have dust and mold (and more) allergies, so ebooks are perfect for me. I’ve actually had asthma flares in the past from borrowed books where prior readers had cats.

I culled 100 books last year and posted about that here. I would estimate that we still have at least 400 books in our little house. It's kind of funny that DH & I are currently making bookcases in carpentry class. However, I plan to store items other than books on them, and that is if we even keep them. I'm more interested in acquiring the skills than the bookcases.

I used to read voraciously - back when I had the time. I'm only now starting to make more time for reading. Was recently gifted with a new Paperwhite kindle and love it. (Had an original Fire tablet that is no longer updated by amazon so...) I've culled my share of books, but dh seems to be filling in my empty spaces with more of his books. Sigh.

I have a small but important collection of illustrated children’s books, important to ME. I think I have 300, or is it 600? One of those numbers is right. They reside in custom built book cabinets on our third floor which is also DH’s den/tv room. This is an “art” collection not reading matter.

We have another, oh, 100 -150 ish books that I could jettison any time with no thought, but most are DH’s. I purposely did not buy reading books from the time I was 25 because I wanted libraries to store my collection. I did make a few exceptions, of course, but those number about a dozen.

I am already thinking how to winnow my art book collection. I set an arbitrary number of 10% to move with us to Hermann, assuming we do that. So I will have to skim off the cream and find a home for the rest. I may take the best 100 of the art books though, we shall see, they are skinny picture books for the most part so do not take up much room.

I don't have THAT many books I'm emotionally attached to, so it was relatively easy to "Kondo" about 225 of them last year. My "keepers" fall under spirituality, permaculture/simple living/gardening, and some key self-help books (the ones that literally changed my life). Also, I have a small collection of autographed books that I got from the actual people themselves--I have T. Boone Pickens book that he autographed for DH and I when we met him in rather unusual circumstances in the 80s; I met Joyce Carol Oates in the 80s and had her sign American Appetites. I also had the opportunity to meet some authors at book-signings: Michael Pollen, John Lithgow, Deepak Chopra.

One of my favorite autographed books came from Duane Elgin, the author of Voluntary Simplicity. At one point he was huge in the VS movement, if you guys recall. So one day I noticed he was giving a talk in NYC at this place where they do new-age type lectures and workshops. I was so psyched!!! I got out of work early, but of course the train was delayed and I was really upset because I figured that would mean I'd have to stand at the back of the room and I'd barely be able to see him.

So I signed in and they directed me upstairs and when I opened the door, I was shocked. There was Duane, in a circle of about six other people. He waved me over, and said, "Sit down!" And in the conversation that followed it was apparent that no one really knew his stature in the VS movement. I had brought my second-hand copy of Voluntary Simplicity with me, and at the end I asked him to sign it, and I made it a point to mention what a pioneer he was in the movement, so that these young NYC whippersnappers would know to whom they had been speaking.

I'll never give THAT book away.

That is a great story about Duane Elgin. Yeah, unless the author is Stephen King or etc it is amazing how up close and personal you can get to them.

I have autographs from Joseph Heller, Scott Turow (I was his assistant at a book signing) and Frank Herbert who wrote the sci fi Dune series, Jane Smiley ‘s Pulitzer novel (I met her at the copy machine at the library where I worked.) None of these are from Librarynconferences because I never wanted to stand in line to get autographed copies of books, the lines were long. I have an inscribed copy of a book by Dave Barry, the humor writer. He wrote in the book “To my closest personal friend!” which is funny since of course I do not know him.

Funny we are talking about this because I am, this week, setting up a sale on ebay, getting rid of an old Paul Simon songbook, a special edition, signed by him and inscribed to his accountant. I hope to get $30-$50 for it, but mainly I want to get it into the hands of someone who would like to have it.

But all of these—I can jettison now. i dont care about them.

I am down to 20 physical books . The rest are kindle. Great for my allergies/asthma. Traveling all I need is my phone.

I envy you all. I live with my SO who is an absolute book hoarder, although he would use the term "collector." He has at least 1,500 books across every room of the house. We have no plans to move, but even the thought of doing something like moving those large bookcases containing hundreds of those books to replace bedroom carpeting is just about out of the question.
No book minimalism for Lainey's house, sadly.

I've seen a suggestion that when we sort books (or anything else, for that matter), we ask ourselves whether an item is a friend, acquaintance or a stranger. Friends stay, acquaintances come and go (donate or repurpose) and strangers are kicked out (trash or donate).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by beckyliz

I've seen a suggestion that when we sort books (or anything else, for that matter), we ask ourselves whether an item is a friend, acquaintance or a stranger. Friends stay, acquaintances come and go (donate or repurpose) and strangers are kicked out (trash or donate).

---

My problem is that just about all ,y books feel like friends and lovers. So it was wrenching to let go of them. Keep telling myself that someone else would have joy in meeting them. that made it a tiny bit better to let them go..

For most of my adult life I've followed IrisLily's plan of letting the library keep most of my book collection. (NYC and San Francisco, where I've lived for 29 years, both have excellent, well funded libraries. When we retire and move somewhere cheaper books may become an area where I have to up my budget.) At any given time I've got 8-15 library books at home, but my permanent collection is maybe 100 books and at some point before we move again I'll probably cull that by half. The rest are "BFF's". Mostly things like cookbooks and high school yearbooks.

One thing I'm undecided on is whether to ditch my dictionary and (two) thesauruses. Thanks to the internet I haven't opened either in years and years, but it somehow just seems wrong to get rid of them.

Books used to be hard to get rid of but the more I moved the easier it got.

OK, I just counted and we have 561 books! I culled 4 as I was counting, so there will be 557, but they have not left the premises yet. I think I will work on nudging that down to 500.

I am actually hoping to go through the bookcases again this weekend. My problem is that my previous purges left the books I "want" to read, but still haven't. I need to start making more time for reading.