This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 3:53 pm and is filed under Let's Get Personal, Writing & Reading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Other than the occasional college hand-me-down, garage sale find, or unnecessary kitchen appliance, my main contribution to our household’s decorating scheme comes in book form. Hardcover, paperback, electronic – if you can read it, I’ve probably owned a copy. Sometimes two or three due to forgetfulness and a variety of gift-giving occasions.
I could blame my long-ago English major for the glut, but my Intro to Shakespeare and Literature of the Romantic Era classes are only partly responsible for the jaw-dropping array of books that took over our back bedroom almost the moment we moved into this house. Piles upon piles soon spilled over the floor, most scattered and tumbled on a search for an unread volume or a beloved favorite. I could have hidden bodies under my Jane Austen collection alone, and no one would know. Not even the most dedicated English lit major could have read all these in four years, plus done all the requisite essays, coffee shop stops and poetry readings, and no sane professor would have required it.
No, a closer diagnosis of the problem actually comes down to one word: Obsession. Since I am a book collector with a typical collector’s zeal for accumulation and a horror of thinning the masses, my toppled stacks have only grown larger and more intimidating over the years. I suspect they brought others into the fold the way all the best cult members do, and naturally some of the more prolific ones bred, so there were soon tiny Little Golden Books running around everywhere, flashing their yellow foil spines and colorful covers. At least the Poky Little Puppy appeared to be house-trained or we’d really have had a mess.
And so over the course of the last several weeks I sorted and stacked and piled and boxed, employing a ruthlessness the strictest anti-clutter guru would applaud. Soon only my unread books and favorite re-reads remained, fluffing out a goodly number of shelves in place of the photos and knickknacks that used to occupy those slots. The second-tier books – the ones I liked but see no need to re-read – I farmed out to friends.
In the end, I dumped the final rejects, those even my friends wouldn’t take, into several crates bound for the library. This gave me a little twinge since it’s a bit of a moral dilemma. My soul could be in peril if I foist off my least favorite tomes on these unsuspecting librarians and their patrons. But then, someone must have seen something in them, or they wouldn’t have been printed in the first place. That’s what I tell myself anytime I encounter a book that doesn’t lift my balloon, at least: Someone must have thought it was good.
The upshot is that we’ve reclaimed a room. I also have a tidy little tax refund for a charitable contribution plus an entire set of shelves dedicated to unread wonders, making new book selection easy. Now the hard part: only buying the essentials until I’ve pared away the unreads. Wish me luck and a great deal of fortitude on that one. I’m going to need it.
August 4th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
The only thing that has kept me from being buried under masses of books is being able to donate used books to the local library. Of course since at least a quarter of these books started out at the used book sale at the same library I guess you can call it recycling. Yeah, that’s it, I’m recycling books and by the look of some of these well read paperbacks I see every year at the sale, I’m not the only one recycling.
August 4th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Oh, you have no idea how much decluttering/decollecting I’ve been doing lately in preparation for the little one’s arrival. I must have thrown away hundreds of magazines that I realized I hadn’t read in ages. I’m sure I decided to keep them for one reason or another, but since I couldn’t come up with one, I tossed them. Next stop: go through my TBR mountain because I KNOW there are books I’ll never get to. *sigh*
August 4th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Because I’m a numbers person, how many books did you re-locate? How many did you keep?
The majority of books that I buy I donate to the library or friends.
Due to limited space in my apartment, I can only keep my favorite authors which I limit. The good thing is most of the authors write 3-book series (except for Janet and J.D. Robb) so I still have plenty of room for more books.
August 4th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Love decluttering.
Enjoy your space.
August 4th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
@Cynthia – An excellent point! And it’s true that lots of my books were used, so it’s no big deal to send them off so someone else can use them, too. Hmmm. Maybe the fact that someone else gave them up first is an indication? Nah. I’ve found some really good books second-hand.
@Marcia – Getting rid of unread books that I know I’ll never get around to was a huge source of guilt for me. I can’t believe how much money I spent on books that I never, ever read and that I now find totally unappealing.
@Dru – I didn’t actually count, but I relocated several hundred books and gave another several hundred away. It was a huge task going through all of those one by one. Wish I had been as disciplined as you! Maybe it’ll be easier now.
@Keri – Me, too – once it’s done, at least. It always makes me feel so accomplished. At the time, though, it’s so daunting.
August 4th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
You need to come over to my house and motivate me. We have a sitting room with a fireplace that’s been taken over by piles of books all over the floor. My husband is supposed to be building wall shelving to house them.
Yeah.
It’s been MONTHS.
August 4th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Wow, I’d love to visit your house!
I love books so much. I really have to force myself to not buy many and I also thin my stacks by passing my books along to my mom and sisters. But then they pass their books to me… LOL
Congrats on paring down.
August 4th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Simplify, simplify said Thoreau and boy was he right! Still, I have your problem, books just multiply. I’m fascinated with the new e-book technology for that very reason.
August 4th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Hi Caryn,
I too hoard books like they are the latest clothing fashion. lol. A few months ago I had a clean out, and donated two huge boxes full of novels to the Australian Literacy Foundation.
I’m a member of Shadow Forest Authors. Their mission is to encourage every author worldwide and from every genre to donate just one copy of their title to fill a void in reading materials and get both paperback books and e-books where they are urgently needed. Authors and supporters standing together to make a difference, our humble shadows speaking volumes.
Here’s the link if anyone is interested.
http://www.shadowforestauthors.com
Worth a thought. I expect to return from the conference soon with more books and the empty shelves I had empty are now full. Time for another clean out.
August 4th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I did the same thing a few months ago, and even use the “ruthless” work. It’s amazing how those shelves are already filling up. Part of the problem is I have so many autographed books — many by friends and chapter mates. I can’t part with them!
August 4th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
@Slouchy – Sounds like it’s your husband who needs the motivation! What works for him? Beer? Threats? Promises?
@Jessica – Well, you still might like to browse the shelves but we don’t have as many books as we did before. Of course, I’d like to think that I kept only the best ones, so maybe the selection would be easier.
@Conda – Actually, my husband coordinated all our family and they bought a Kindle for me for my birthday. It’s one of the things that finally prompted me to clean out this back bedroom!
@Suzanne – The Shadow Forest Authors sounds like a really great organization. What a good idea! And, yeah, a ton of my books were giveaways at conferences. Since I didn’t hand-select them, they weren’t always ones I would have chosen to read. I felt bad leaving them behind, though; I didn’t want to hurt the authors’ feelings. I’m hoping they find more interested readers.
@Edie – I think I remember reading your post about it. (You did post about it, right?) Seems lots of people are actually doing this over the summer. Oh, and I have the same problem with autographed books. So hard to get rid of them, even if I don’t really know the authors. As for friends’ books, those were easy – I kept them all.
August 5th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Ahaha. That is exactly how my husband is with DVDs. He’ll come home with one and I’ll be like, why did you buy that? Is it a good movie? Is it one we’ll want to watch more than once? And he’ll be all, well it sounded interesting so I got it. Which is why we have a huge collection of movies that are less than wonderful. Greh.
I dunno. My rule of thumb is that if it doesn’t get used more than three times, it isn’t worth buying. That goes for movies, games, books, and appliances. Rent it, borrow it, or test it out first. He’s getting better about these things but mostly because I can exude harpyish qualities. =P
Still, I know how hard kicking a habit can be so good luck with keeping your bookshelves trimmed down.
August 5th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Wow. Very impressive. Isn’t it weird how it’s actually painful to let go of books? I admire your steeliness!
August 5th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Don’t you feel better now?
I’m a member of the ‘if you love something, set it free’ camp, so giving a great read to a friend/family member has never been a problem. Books written by friends? Not so much. I’ve still got ‘em all. My theory is my kids are ‘aging out’ (as in, will likely be moving out in the next 3-5 years) and as my friends have more releases and I gain more writer friends, bedrooms will become available where I can house ‘friend’ books. After that? Hmm, I may have to off the husband so I can create library shelves in his garage. Too bad I have such clever friends who are bound to fill the bedroom shelves in no time.
August 6th, 2009 at 8:10 am
Good luck! My weakness would be manga… it’s easy to accumulate a lot of comic books because I have several favorite series and each series have at least 30 volumes in each, if not more. Eek!
August 6th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Oh no! I must say that I have a bit of an “Obsession” myself. Which is all fine right now (sort of) until I decide to move. Lugging all of these books around won’t be much fun.
August 6th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
@Erin – That’s a great rule of thumb. I do something similar for DVDs, which is why I only own my favorites. The rest I can rent if I want to see them. I often don’t have access to particular books, though, unless I buy them. Our library is good about buying the books I request, but I can’t possibly have them order *everything* I want to read – the list is too long!
@Suzanne – Yes! ‘Painful’ is definitely the word. I haven’t missed any of them yet, though. Now that they’re gone I don’t have them around to remind me of what I’m missing. Here’s hoping that continues.
@Lainey – It’s the ‘books written by friends’ category that gets me, too. Plus I’m always finding new favorite authors. I don’t reread many books, but sometimes I will if it’s a fav author or a friend, and I must have the book. Which is why we, like you, always need more bookshelves!
@Abby – Oh, yes! I know several people who are really into manga, and it really piles up. It doesn’t help that it’s such a fast read, so it takes more books to read the same amount of time.
@Jessica – Yeah, last time I cleaned out my books was right before I moved, and even then I wasn’t anywhere near as ruthless as I could/should have been because I had to carry so many heavy boxes.
August 6th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
I think you should get a special reward from all the authors whose books you buy. Think of how many you’ve kept in business. And in these hard times, we who write books fall at your feet in gratitude.
August 6th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Oh, Caryn, what a sweetie you are!! Thank you for claiming “Jane” as an “essential”
. And, on the subject of paring down, I need to look to you for guidance and inspiration. We donated 3 boxes of books to the library last month, and I STILL can’t see the carpet over 2/3 of my office because books are piled there… Sigh. I try to fight this book-collecting addiction, but I always fail 
.
August 6th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Ohhhhhhhh… My heart broke just a little, my stomach dropped, and my eyes popped as I let out a big gasp. Wow. I still have my first copy of Charlotte’s Web. How difficult to go through and delete a good portion of your life like that. And at the same time? I’m in a temp housing situation a year later, with all my books still in boxes and feel that it is time for me to do the same thing. If I’ve lived without for a year, I don’t really need them, right? *sigh*
August 7th, 2009 at 12:28 am
How very funny–I sorted through books this summer, too! And delivered several boxes to our local Friends of the Library.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
I’m planning to do this very thing as soon as I’m out from under this deadline!!
August 7th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
I have a terrible time letting go of books. It’s almost painful!
August 9th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Nice try, but they grow back. Trust somebody who’s gone through this a time or two before. But, I bet it feels pretty good to look at that back bedroom and see floor space!
August 9th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
I started the same thing a few weeks ago. Unfortunately it’s taking me a bit longer because I came across some books where I could not for the life of me remember what they were about. It’s hard enough getting rid of books, let alone getting rid of books while feeling like you didn’t read them. So now I have a huge pile I’m working on reading again, and THEN I’ll throw them in the box! At this rate, I’ll never get to the books on my Amazon wish list!
August 10th, 2009 at 5:20 am
I LOVE books! I couldn’t part with them. But then, I still manage to be quite disciplined when buying…
August 11th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Oh, I’m terrible at getting rid of books! They are the one thing that I have a hard time parting with. I do, however, invite friends to borrow books whenever they want (seriously, I’m like a mini-bookstore) and if it’s not a true favorite, I’ll let the due late slide. (Ha! Just kidding – there’s no due date.)
August 13th, 2009 at 9:27 am
It IS a great feeling to pass books along. It leaves more room for you to acquire new ones and spreads the love. I think if I had more shelves, my book problem would grow.
August 13th, 2009 at 11:18 am
For the longest time, I kept books around thinking that maybe some houseguest would want to read them. Finally, I realized, if I didn’t like the book all that much, did I want my houseguests making assumptions about my literary tastes based on the unliked book? So I gave a bunch of books away.
I, too, try to confine it to “unread” and “favorites.” It’s still really hard. But I’ve cut back quite a bit. My next pass will be, “No, seriously, am I REALLY going to read this?”
August 14th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Congratulations! I need to do a little de-cluttering myself. But I don’t think my situation is nearly as bad as yours.
And it seems we agree on ‘the essentials’.
August 17th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
I could have written this post. My book obsession is always on the verge on out of control. Every year I give away stacks and stacks, but more appear.
August 23rd, 2009 at 4:50 am
I am also a book lover… I can’t give them away…they are part of me….