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.
@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.
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.
Wow. Very impressive. Isn’t it weird how it’s actually painful to let go of books? I admire your steeliness!
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. 🙂
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!
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.
@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.
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.
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 :).
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*