I looked at my bookshelves last night, and came to a realisation:
I have too many books and not enough space. To deal with this problem I can do one of two things.
1. Stop buying books.
2. Take anything from my shelves that I will never read, will never re-read or have two copies of.
Obviously, number one is a sheer impossibility, so I have to turn to number two. This is hard. I mean, I have actually spent money on these books, and I obviously wanted them at the time. However, I took the bit between my teeth this evening and have been pulling left, right and centre, and have a towering pile of 66 on the floor. (In an interesting parallel, I have read about 66 books this year.)
I'm going back to review the shelves now. I need the space, and I MUST be ruthless. Wish me luck!
6 comments:
Why not sell your duplicates on Green Metropolis and buy more books with the proceeds? I have reduced my spending on books considerably this year by doing this.
https://www.greenmetropolis.com/
I've never heard of Green Metropolis! I tend to take the ones worth selling to Blackwells and the rest to Charity shops. Some end up in work too.
The main point of getting rid of things is to free up shelf space. With any luck I won't end up buying more books to make up for the ones I've got rid of! Think this might be a pipe dream!
When I retired and realised that there was just no way that I was going to be able to accommodate all the books that I had in my office in my small home I started down the line of adding up what I'd spent on them over the years. It was a very bad decision! I had to stop or I would never have been able to get rid of them. As it was I took them all down to Oxfam in the hope that they would find a home with some other reader who would need them and could pay considerably less for them than I'd had to.
Don't try Bookmooch (well, do, it's quite fun...) as I thought I would get rid of some books that way. I have mooched more than I've parted with, and the shelving crisis is more pressing them ever. I tried a bargain with the newly-moved in mouse last night - he can stay if he eats some books (selected titles only).
Becca, no!
I'm not helpful at all... whenever I weed out books (a good ten went last month) I think about when I'm grey and old and have an entire house to myself with every wall lined with bookshelves... and decide to keep the lot.
Table Talk -- counting up how much you might have spent is never a good idea. I work on the basis that they all cost £10 - some might have cost less, some more, some free, so my total cost works out at about £8,000. Not good to contemplate!
Geranium Cat -- no, I don't need any more ideas for how to spend money on books. I don't have a mouse either, so I'm forced to cull the books myself!
Simon -- oh, I know - it's like trying to decide which child to give away! But when on earth am I going to read a biography on JFK, or the year 1481 when China changed the world??? I have to do it, and the more I manage to sell to Blackwell's the more vouchers I can get! (There is an obvious flaw in the logic here, but this time I mean to be good and save them for Christmas and potentially use them for presents.)
I had intended on posting all the books here and seeing if anyone wanted them, but the postage cost would far outweigh the benefit of seeing them in loving homes!!!
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