I love the library. Seriously love love love the library. Every time I go in, my soul positively SINGS with all the possibilities of those thousands of FREE books, and I leave with a huge stack. I am a self-proclaimed book junkie, and find the pull of those colorful shelves really too much to resist. Did you know that many libraries will allow you to register online, request books, and they will DELIVER them to the branch closest to you when they're available? All for free?! If you are not positively weeing your pants over the awesomeness of this, I humbly suggest you read that sentence again.
So, I'm pretty comfortable with the number of books I'm NOT buying. But what about the hundreds of books lining my shelves as we speak? The much beloved, the yet-to-read, the just-in-case-I-ever-need-to-know-how-to-unclog-a-toilet-with-tin-foil-and-dental-floss books? Like the simplification of my beautification, this will take some time, and I predict I will need to revisit the issue several times.
Right now? I'm going for the easy purges first:
- reference books I haven't "referenced" in the past 2 years
- books chock full of info I could easily find online
- books that, when I'm really, truly, deeply honest with myself, I don't really want to read (bye bye "War and Peace"!)
OK, that should be a good chunk. Our library is having a book donation drive, so I'll just take the books there and I can visit them whenever I want! The tough thing about purging books though? You have to let go of the person you thought you would be when you finished reading them. THIS is why simplifying can be so scary - the only potential you will ultimately be left with is what you have to work with TODAY. Scary, but freeing.... but scary.
We have a ton of Dean Koontz books that we put up on Paperback Swap. Apparently no one there wants them, either. :)
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain Lisa! I tried to freecycle a ton of popular books (Water for Elephants, Eat Pray Love, etc.) and nobody wanted them either. What gives, people??!!
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