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Books. Do we need them anymore?

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I love reading. I read often. You might think I'd be the last person to want to get rid of books. But I do have a lot of them. There's about 100 just in this little arty photo of my main two shelves.


I want to reduce, but what if I want to read them again? Should I hold on to them just in case?

Oops! I said those 3 words. The 3 dangerous words to say when downsizing. "Just in case".

Let's not be a hoarder

If you've ever seen those hoarding shows on TV, the 'star' of the show has 10,000 objects they are keeping "just in case". As outsiders we can clearly see that it's all a complete waste of space.

So how do I avoid the "just in case" syndrome and instead make sensible decisions about my books?

Actual Data

The theory for keeping a book is that I might read it again. But how likely is that? Let's take a survey of the books on my top shelf (neatly arranged by height).


Part-read or never read counts as zero. Once read is one. Twice is two, etc.

The survey says...

I looked at each book, saying out loud the number of times I'd read it. It sounded like I was reading binary code from a computer:

0100001011000000000101111011010011000010001100010 was my top shelf.

It was all ones and zeroes. Just once had I re-read a single chapter. Out of 52 books, not one have I fully re-read.

So many unread

Yes it was a surprise to me too. Why did I get so many books and not ever read them?

Many come from Bookfest, my city's second-hand book sale for charity. The books there are such a bargain (perhaps an over-purchase or two) and often aren't available in libraries. Others are gifts that I've just never got around to reading. Why is that?

The library is fantastic

Every week there's new and interesting books at the library. (Check out my book reviews). Once they come home (with a deadline for return) it's hard for the books I already own to get any of my attention.

Shelf-control

I've given myself two shelf-control rules to improve the situation.

1. For now I've put myself on a Bookfest purchase-ban, to avoid gaining even more 0's (unread books) than I already have.

2. I read, and list for sale, at least one book each month. This is to slowly reduce the backlog of 0's and 1's I have now. Hopefully I do more than one per month, but that's my minimum.
(Tip: I find the easy way to get momentum started is start with the 1's. Because I've read them before, they're easier to skim-read. Unless I fall in love with it, it gets finished and listed online.)

Selling online

If you've are looking to sell items online, you may want to grab a free copy of my ebook Less Clutter More Cash for tips.

PS. Going through so many books can be daunting. See how I do it without getting overwhelmed.
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Comments

  1. Thrifty Magyar28 May 2019 at 04:36

    I am an unapologetic book hoarder. I own thousands of books and though I occasionally do get rid of some (last year I culled most of the children's craft books, some duplicates and books I know I won't read) I have no plans on getting rid of some any time soon. My rule (and it's flexible) is that as long as I can shelve them, they can stay.

    I've got a lot of classics, enough that when I see a film based on a classic book, I think I must have that book and am surprised when I don't. Sometimes I will lend a book, usually I reread it before I lend it (happened with my copy of Seabiscuit...twice!) Some of my books are like old friends, something makes me think of a passage, paragraph and I want to read it again. I've read Pride and Prejudice at least 10 times, Dickens Christmas stories 5 or 6 times, King's On Writing at least 3 times.

    My sewing room has a dedicated shelf for sewing books, my upstairs hall has three bookshelves filled with craft books (The bottom shelf houses my collection of vinyl albums), Living room has book shelves on both sides of the fireplace, kitchen has four shelves of cookbooks, sunroom has gardening books and the basement has two book shelves in the study and a repurposed plywood shelving unit that holds more books.

    I don't live close to a library, I am in the country miles from the downtown where our library is housed. Although I do own an e-reader, it is only used when I travel. The only time my luggage was overweight was when I had too many books packed. The e-reader solved that problem,

    I buy books everywhere, the thrift store when they are 10 for $5, when I travel, even when they have charity book sales at the hospital, my credit union. On vacation in Australia I bought books, a cook book that has become our staple for Christmas baking, a boxed set of classics, a book of Australian poetry.

    I do have a stack of romance novels that were given to me and I have been giving them away as I read them. But most of my books that I like I will reread.

    I came late to the Game of Thrones series, I found the boxed set at Costco, bought it and not am nearing the end of book 1, while watching the series on NetFlix. Great stuff! Also reading Trotsky at work and The Mill on the Floss. Reading has always been my escape. If I ever downsize, my priority will be a place to have lots of books, either a dedicated room or a wall to hold my collection.

    ReplyDelete
  2. david28 May 2019 at 07:30

    Hi Thrifty Magyar and thanks for your comment. It definitely sounds like books are your special thing - and that you read them multiple times. That's two reasons to hang on to them. (sidenote: I'm Australian, so I'm glad you enjoy our poetry - older Australian poetry has its very own character)
    My article was just illustrating that sometimes we can hang on to stuff that we don't need or aren't going to use again. When I took an objective look at my collection and my reading habits I discovered that I wasn't going back to these books, but instead they were gathering dust and I was kind of keeping them hostage and preventing anyone from reading them.
    Books are fantastic so I figure that if I'm not going to read them, they should be in the hands of someone who will.

    ReplyDelete

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