Letting go...

I love books. Really love them. So much so that I find it really hard to get rid of them. I buy most of my books second hand, and they just stack up and up on my bookshelf. To the point that I have a large five shelved bookshelf that is full. And then there are books stacked on top of the books. And then there are books stacked in front of the books. And then I bought another bookshelf.

I realised when writing an earlier post about libraries and second hand books that my motivation for buying second hand books was that I don't feel like we all need to own brand new copies of things, and so I like the idea of sharing books. However, by buying them second hand, and then hoarding them on my shelves, I'm not exactly facilitating this. My imminent house move prompted me to address this. The prospect of packing and moving all these books was a bit overwhelming, so I decided something had to be done.

Now, I realised that my motivation behind keeping a lot of these books was more because I wanted to lend them to friends, rather than because I thought I would re-read them myself. And so I figured what I'd do instead was just give them to my friends. And so I went through my bookshelf, pulling out all the books I could bear to part with. Then I went through again, being a bit tougher. And then once more, getting mean this time. I suddenly had 60 less books on my shelf. What's left is the books I haven't yet read (making them easier to find amongst the remaining books) and those that I love and will most likely re-read some day.

So then I wrote a list of all the books and posted it on facebook. A few hours later, half the books have been claimed, including a few people who didn't recognise any names on the list but asked me to pick a few out for them.

And so it now appears that my books will once again fit on a single bookshelf, I have two less boxes of things to move, and those books will get read by someone new, and maybe passed on again and again...