Books

It’s no big secret I love to read. Said reading, combined with my penchant for keeping stuff, has resulted in shelves and stacks of books in every room of the house. In nooks and also crannies, on tabletops and under other books and in drawers and boxes and bins.

Okay, before you start thinking you might see me showing up on a reality show sometime soon, it’s not actually THAT bad! Let’s just say we’ve accumulated more books of varying types and topics and descriptions than a body actually needs.  So at the moment – or rather, over the course of the last week or so – I’m going through the process of figuring out which books mean something special to us, which I’ll keep for reference, which I haven’t read yet (and which I’m not that likely to read) and so forth.

Many of the books pass quickly and easily through my hands, either because they’re not special and go right to the giveaway stacks or because they are and I put them in one of the sort-for-shelving stacks. Others require a minute or two to figure out if I’ve read them and if not, whether I am likely to in future. Some I think I’ll keep in my reference collection, only to find out a couple stacks later that I’ve two copies or a later revision of the same book. After all, I probably don’t really need two editions of the same writers’ stylebook.

Dictionaries represent a challenge. It’s a good thing to have several, since the compilers take different points of view and a vibrant lexicon cannot be captured in a single Webster’s. I’m thinking seven is about the right number of dictionaries for a household and I’ll donate the remainder. This is not including the massive 1920s library model with which I will NEVER part. Yeah, seven is good; it’s not like the girls are still living here and need them for school use.

I admit my collection of Heinlein is for old times’ sake and being paperback, they don’t take up much room. But Uris and Michener are outta here, not because I don’t cherish them but simply because I won’t read them again and someone needs to. My Amy Tans and Anita Desais go to an old friend. Twain and Solzhenitsyn and Plato and my Gary Larson compilation go to Goodwill where one hopes they’ll find their audience. Most of my old textbooks also go to Goodwill, hopefully to find a second life as doorstops or bed levelers.

Coffee table books are tough. Most were gifts and some are actually cool but the truth is, we don’t have a coffee table. I’m determined to make it through Les Miserables so it stays, for the moment. Daughter One’s Stephen Kings and Two’s Orson Scott Cards will be preserved for the moment. And of course, yearbooks – I really wish I still had mine from my senior year.

We hope we’re going from five bookcases to two with no excess in odd locations around the manse.

Wish us luck with that, won’t you?