Pruning the Book Collection
Josh and I are in the process of gutting the basement. We’ve been in the process of gutting the basement for a long time. We cull out the things we don’t need, but then we shift things from our normal living area into our storage room, and the process starts all over again. (I know, why don’t we skip this step and just move it out of the house? Because sometimes we don’t know that we don’t need it until some time has passed. This is our process; we’re not going to change it.)
This time I mentioned that we should add books into the mix. We have a lot of books. Like half of our processions are books. All four walls of the basement are bookcases, and all of the bookcases are filled beyond capacity. We do not need this many books.
But I find it really hard to get rid of any.
Even when we have doubles of the same book. (What if we both want to read Ulysses at the same time?)
There are a few that I know I will never read, or the contents will be out-dated by the time I need the subject. There are the non-special picture books; the ones the twins liked enough when they were little, but they weren’t the ones they always grabbed for story time. Or fiction that sounded like a great idea, but the first page never grabbed me.
What I can’t get rid of are old travel guides, even though I would never use them even if I was going back to the same place. College books that remind me of a class. Signed copies, even if I didn’t love the book. Anything I may read one day. Anything I enjoyed reading.
I don’t collect anything else. We have almost no decorative pieces in our home.
Maybe I should just install more bookcases.
Do you get rid of books?
14 comments
I do sell off books for credit at the used bookstore once or twice a year, but I tend to limit that to cookbooks that I only consistently cook a handful of recipes from. I copy the recipe into my notebook. Then there’s the fluff reads…light mysteries, popular fictions, beach reads. I’m not likely to want to read them again, so they are easy to let go and I know I can always hit the library if I feel the need to re-read that cozy mystery about the murder in the book store. Kids books get sold pretty regularly or put in the little free library on our street. We are fortunate to receive so many books as gifts or from the school that we frequently have duplicates or books that just don’t hold their interest. I am trying to get better about buying digital versions of light reads, but I am never going to get over the physical pleasure of holding a book and turning pages.
When we moved, I finally, gut-wrenchingly, tearfully, sold college textbooks and a bunch of other books that just made me feel good knowing we had them in case I wanted to read them again. I am gradually replacing them using those used bookstore credits.
I have tried to achieve a stasis…one book in, one book out at this point because our basement is too damp to store books, Buttercup’s bedroom has the built in bookshelves, but it is only fair that some of them hold her toys, and, sad to say, our dust allergies mean that we have to have limits.
I had to get rid of some of my books when we moved. 🙁 I had four IKEA Billy bookcases full (three full sized & one narrow sized — three in the basement plus one upstairs (which mostly had photo albums on it) plus a metal shelving unit full, and a couple of Rubbermaid bins full with more books stacked on top of the bins, PLUS piles and piles more, stacked on the floor in front of the shelves. The only reason I agreed to move to a condo was if we got a second bedroom (or at the least a spacious one-plus-den) where I could set up an office with our desk and bookshelves. I knew most one-bedroom condos would not fit even a fraction of my book collection. Dh agreed, with the stipulation that I could only bring what fit on the bookshelves. (Although I still have two Rubbermaid bins full in the corner of the room, so I guess I cheated a bit…! 😉 )
Culling my collection was a process that unfolded over several months… I had to just keep chipping away at it, and towards the end, as moving day approached, I just had to bite the bullet and make some hard choices. I lost count at 60 (!) liquor cartons full of books (they can hold a surprising number of books without getting too heavy) that we hauled to the Salvation Army thrift store over the months. I’m lucky that my sister has passed along some of her vast collection of freebie e-books that she’s found on the Internet to me — including lots of popular authors like John Grisham & Steve Berry & Sophie Kinsella, etc., plus just about every book by our favourite author, Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters — so I wound up getting rid of (just about) anything that I had the e-book version for. I did keep any signed copies (I have books signed by Elizabeth Peters, Gloria Steinem, Michelle Landsberg, Lauren Bacall, and our first & only female PM Kim Campbell, to name a few).
Outdated travel guides & the like went. Ironically, I had a ton of books on organizing (lol) — and most of those went. I figured if I wanted tips on organizing, I could find then on the Internet. As AMS said above, “fluff reads” that I knew I would probably not read again, went. Anything that I hadn’t read & knew I probably wasn’t going to get to anytime soon, went — I promised myself that if I really missed it, I could buy another copy, and so far, I don’t think I have. I got rid of a ton of cookbooks that I rarely even looked at. There are so many recipes on the Internet these days…! I had several cookbooks that I’d only ever tried one or two recipes from — I copied those recipes and got rid of the book. (I did keep the church & community cookbooks that my mom got for me that have some of her recipes & my grandmother’s in them.)
Of course, I’ve bought a lot of books in the two years since we moved, and I am starting to double-stack those on the shelves — so I am probably going to have to do another cull again sometime soon…!
I have a box of books I’ve meant to get rid of for about 3 years. 🤣
I don’t buy paper books anymore unless I think it’s the sort of book I’d take into the sewers after the apocolapse to teach my children about the lost civilization. I buy more digital books, at least I did until I lost my Kobo (read hid from myself) 🤦♀️
Of course I meant books for myself. Right now my daughters have all sorts of books, from good to not great. It’s not a problem *yet*
I’ve toted boxes of books across the country and back even though I generally don’t read books more than once. Finally last year I culled most of our books. Some I’ve sold on eBay (mystery sets etc). It was hard but the books just sat there taking up space of which we have little. I did keep college and grad school books in my major. And for kids books we have to periodically cull although I have kept some baby favorites.
For most books I buy now (often used) I put them in the goodwill bag as soon as I’m done.
I don’t read too often these days, but I do go through phases where I read a ton at once, then don’t for a while. We each had a smallish collection of our own when we got married but it just got to be a while lot bigger over the years. At one point during one of my phases I purchased a ridiculous amount of books and I didn’t get to read even a fraction before I wasn’t for a while. By the time I found them again most Inhad no interest in it couldn’t figure out why I bought it in the first place. The good thing about moving is that it really forces you to take a good look at what you have. If you don’t feel like packing it, it doesn’t get kept. So during this last move I really downsized. I only kept a few books I really, really loved that were special to me. I am this way with everything, thought, not just books. I don’t see the point anymore of curating physical collections. I got rid of most DVDs and other trinkets as well.
I have a ridiculous amount of children’s books, from Baby to young adult. I recently went through those, and most that were falling apart of ripped I got rid of. There were also certain books I just hated that I remembered from my older kids, so those went to goodwill. I really miss half.com, because I bought many more books that way because it was so cheap. Goodwill is a great place to look, but the one by me is just shelves of books in no particular order, so I have to really be willing to look through them.
I do. I keep almost no books for myself. I am not one to reread and I usually get my books from the library anyway. I only have a select few that I won’t part with. My kids’ books – I love to give away. Mostly to our library book store. I like that some other child will have the fun of discovering a new story and the library will raise more funds for the programs we enjoy. Now that my older daughter reads chapter books I don’t give away any as she likes to reread and will also be able to pass on some to her sister. It’s going to become a storage issue but hasn’t yet so I’m just letting it go.
For the longest time, I used to have difficulty getting rid of books. I hauled so many boxes of heavy boxes on multiple moves. But a few years ago I read The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and while it didn’t change my life, it *did* enable me to start getting rid of some books. I limit myself to what will fill two tall bookshelves in our front room (what most people would call “the formal living area”).
I also cull my sons’ books periodically, with their assistance, and attempt to limit those to one small bookcase in their loft/playroom. They check out books from the school and public libraries regularly, too, and that makes them more willing to part with some books they’ve outgrown (though not all).
Q. and I own a LOT of books. We did a pretty major purge before P was born and got rid of a large Billy equivalent. We purged any double copies plus books we knew we wouldn’t read again. Q buys a lot of books for work (his will has a literary executor to make sure the academic books find a good home). I’ve almost entirely stopped buying books now and just use the library (although I do buy books for the kids). At some point we will have to start purging the board books but not yet.
Honestly, I found it really freeing to finally start to get rid of books. I’ve kept anything special, but I’m now much better at giving away new purchases (usually gifts someone has bought me) after I’ve read them. Before I’d keep everything and it was going to get out of control.
I get rid of virtually all books (the major exception is my son’s books, I mostly let him choose when to get rid of those, though I will ask him to identify those he’s ready to pass along and do sometimes do some weeding in that vein myself when it’s obvious he’s way outgrown a book and it seems likely to be of interest to other kids, when there are book drives and such).
I live in a town with a great library and work at a great research university with another nearby, and there’s just no reason for me to have books (that I am not currently reading) in the house. There’s almost nothing I need to own, or can’t lay hands on quickly, if I will need it.
Also, I know this is book-lover heresy, but I would pretty much never own another paper book ever if I could avoid it. I much prefer the accessibility and portability of my Kindle (… app on my phone).
I am just like you. Including a basement full of wall-to-ceiling books and great difficulty getting rid of any of them (what if??).
Getting rid of books is hard for me. Currently, I buy most new ones for the kindle because as much as I resisted giving up actual books it IS easier on my poor, pain riddled hand. And, I don’t need a light which means I can read while the husband sleeps, which with his very odd schedule is a plus. But, the kindle is recent (last couple years). And, I have not only all my books, but my mom’s which I inherited. My office is 2 solid walls of bookshelves and they are PACKED full. We also have a loft with more. And, when we moved back to California we actually got rid of BOXES of them, which broke my heart but books are HEAVY and cost a lot to move. So, knowing what amount of space we’d have in our new home I did cull the collection. I’m happy to say I also got mom’s beautiful bookcases. So while my husband currently has my office far too piled to use when I can use it again it’s glorious. And, now the books have a home where I can read and re-read them.
This is why I now love e-books. My husband has way more books than I do – double depth on book cases clogging up my office and a spare spare room I want to turn into a walk-in wardrobe, and some in boxes in store rooms and under beds. Sigh. I hate getting rid of books though (or my own, at least) but I’ve decided that I have a whole heap I will never read again, and that must go.
I’m also with you on the guide books. I think I still have my first guide book, from 1991! They’re always good for research though, even if you’d never take them. (Of course, that ignores the fact that I can and do research much more online.)
Install more bookcases! 🙂 We have more books than anything else in the house, too, and it is very hard to cull the collection. I did purge some over the last year, mostly books I’ll never use (outdated decorating books that belonged to my husband’s ex-wife, really old gardening books I never used and predated me), although I have started cycling books that I’ve read but don’t need to keep (twisty-for-fun-fluffy books mostly) through people at school — if they come back to me, great, but if they don’t, well they’re being well-read elsewhere. I love my kindle for reading at the gym and travel, but you can pry my paper books out of my cold, dead hands. I do donate some of the ones I don’t need to the library (that’s where the gardening and decorating ones went, and a bunch of books I hated but held on to for some reason, and a bunch of picture books). I love the travel guides that you keep — it’s a history, like a snapshot in time. I’d keep those, too.
So, uh, MORE BOOKSHELVES.