Getting rid of books
It’s one of the hardest decisions to make when purging, what books to keep and what books to give away. But the shelves where getting crowded.
I asked my oldest two children to help me. My eldest ( who is ten swears I have ten thousand books) I think it’s closer to 500. Either way, I have a lot. I took a big box into the room with me and told the kids “We have to fill this box with books.â€
I knew they would hold me to it, because I do this to them when we clean their rooms all the time. Purge, they would delight in a chance to turn the tables on me.
But man, I hate getting rid of books. Thank god the kids helped.
There were rules of course.
Rule one- some authors are sacred, no book by them, or anthology with them could go. Some of those sacred authors include Anne Bishop, Kelley Armstrong, Vicki Pettersson, and Patricia Briggs. Or a number of other (look right for a more complete sample).
Rule two – no signed book could leave, cause at heart, I’m a nerd.
Rule three – I pick the books, not the kids.
Rule four – The box must be filled. (By far the hardest rule)
It was a long painful process, but in the end we did it. The box was filled. Some decisions were easy. There were at least five books I had duplicate copies of. This is what happens when I let the shelves get so disorganized and don’t sort by author. Not even I know what I own. The kids LOVED playing librarian. We had stacks and stacks of books around the room by author, anthologies, and subject matter. Then we shelved them logically.
Some decisions were hard. Books I owned for years that had been on my “to be read†list just as long but other books I was more interested in and more passionate about always pushed them down the list. With regret I placed at least a few of these in the box.
A few were books I read but didn’t enjoy that much. They were books I felt “Ehh†about. So I was okay with passing on to the next reader. Maybe someone else will feel passion for them.
Some where my husbands non-fiction books that he was finished with (yeah we sorted through some of his too) I asked him about every single title first. Ones he had read, or ones he never planned to read. Besides he has his iGeorge now. He reads most non-fiction on that these days.
I’m glad it’s over and the shelves are all sorted and in order and have room for growth. That means I shouldn’t have to purge again for a long time. **fingers crossed**