Even though I love the act of reorganizing books, I am not too fond of decluttering my bookcase. I have a (genetic, I think) tendency to buy and collect way too many books, but I only have one (rather big) bookcase. And I promised T. not to add another one. That promise was made long ago, when we still lived in the Netherlands, to keep the collection from growing to big (it really helps to have limited space).
I have to admit I can get a bit envious when I see pictures of extensive home libraries. Two of my girls also inherited that book collecting tendency; they too have lots and lots of books and several bookcases and even though I try to share my wisdom (ha!) about keeping it curated, I do feel a bit jealous sometimes when they just add another bookcase because they ran out of space.
Of course, my one bookcase is filled to the brim. No decorative little stacks of books accompanied by other knickknacks for me. Nope. Waste of space, if you ask me. Those shelves need to hold books. Lots of books. I do try to stay away from double rows though. I used to do that, but I realized a few years ago that it’s no use to keep books I can’t see or reach and probably will forget I owned in the first place.
And that’s why my bookcase needed a thorough decluttering. I had some double rows appear out of nowhere (that happens, you know, even in a country with very few opportunities to buy books) and I was on the slippery slope of defending that moving my herbal and medical books to a different place (not an extra bookcase, I just wanted to create a space to keep them with my herbs and herbal concoctions – so sneaky) was just the right thing to do. It had to stop.
But it was hard. Getting rid of some of those books meant admitting that I will never have the time, nor the headspace, to study all the topics that interest me, and giving up on the idea that I can teach myself to like reading “real literature”. There were books that made me believe I could get my life in order or my body strong and healthy and even though I know those methods don’t work for me, it took me a while to put them in the donate pile. There were stories I believed could inspire me to be a different person; they never did, but maybe they would in the future… And then there were books I had loved to read, but I would probably never read them again. Or would I? It was a struggle, really. But it also felt so, so good to do it. I needed a fresh start.
Apart from a few cook books in my kitchen and the novels I wrote myself, that are on display in our living room, all the books we own are in (okay, and on top of) the bookcase now, in single rows (actually most of them are mine – T. has very few books).
Well, except for my Agatha Christie collection (bottom shelf). I have all her books and I feel triple rows are just very sensible. Otherwise they would take up more than three shelves and this just contains them nicely. Never mind that I can’t see them all and never really reread at least half of them. Ahem…
Gosh, I’m long winded these days… I actually just wanted to tell you what I was thinking about when I was making those though decisions about what to keep and what not.
We book lovers tend to think we are above the mere act of collecting. After all, the books we own contain beautiful words, deep thoughts, interesting stories and useful knowledge. I used to believe that. I really thought that collecting books was very different from collecting stamps, or dolls, or teacups or… you know, stuff.
So why do I want to keep books after I’ve read them? If I’m honest with myself it’s because I want to own the vessel containing those beautiful words, deep thoughts, interesting stories, and useful knowledge. And of course there’s nothing wrong with that. But do I really need to own everything I ever thought to be beautiful, deep, interesting or useful? For anything else but books the answer would be a very strong “no, of course not!”. I’m not a hoarder. Or am I? Are books really different?
After seeing my parents struggling with letting go of 75% of their books five years ago, and helping my father to get rid of another 50% (or more? I think it was more) of the remains this summer, I realized I had to change the way I feel about my books.
(this is just me, by the way, I am by no means forcing this upon others, just sharing).
I do want to have a nice collection of books that I love to pick up and reread, but I don’t, really I don’t, want to be emotional attached to them, or even to the thought of having them. If I ever lose my books, or have to downsize my bookcase, I just want to remember them (or rather the words, thoughts, stories and knowledge in them) fondly without being too sad about letting them go. People are important, stuff is not. Books are stuff.
So, I guess I do need to go through that bottom shelf…
NOT A STATION 
I can relate to so much of this. Upstairs in our house there is sort of a small open room at the top of the stairs, not a hall. I had dreams of making that area into a mini library, floor-to-celing shelves and a cozy chair to sit and read. We started with buying 2 bookcases and stacking them on one wall. Both were immediately filled with all the books I already had, and we never did buy more to continue. I’d started piling up all the new books I kept buying, piling them on the floor in front of the shelves, until there were so many we couldn’t get into the hall closet anymore. After my son moved out, I started stacking the overflow of books in his old room, off that hall/room. Just a few years ago I finally said, ‘Enough is enough!’ I donated a TON of books to the local library and have slowed way down on buying. During the worst parts of the pandemic I didn’t donate, but now that life is pretty much back to normal I need to haul another ton over to the library.
I tend to only keep things I think I’ll read again, or full sets of things like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, etc. I’ve started buying books a bit more often in recent months but I know now that I’m okay with donating them after I’ve read them. People always used to ask me why I waste so much money on buying them? Or why don’t I sell them when I’m done? Or why don’t I use a Kindle to avoid clutter? I’ve never been into Kindles. I don’t consider books a waste of money. And I’m not looking to make a buck back when I know our little local library can always use new books.
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Oh, that does sound like a great place for a home library! But books tend to multiply when you’re not looking 😉
I think donating them to the library is a great way to get rid of books you don’t want to keep.
I have a subscription for my kobo e-reader, allowing me to download all the books I want for a monthly fee. I do prefer real books, but I wouldn’t be able to afford all the books I read in a year.
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I’m such a slow reader, it saves me a few dollars in not having to buy new books as fast. LOL
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When we moved last summer I got rid of a ton of books and yet I kept a bunch of books with the hopes I would read and then move them out in a timely manner. I might have moved out 10 but I bet you I brought in 10…
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Yeah, books tend to find their way into our homes faster than we can get rid of them.😉
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We all have our “thing”. Mine is craft supplies. I find it hard to let go of patterns, even ones I didn’t enjoy using or feel I have a reason to make again. And half the patterns I have purchased I have never used! I did go through my knitting books and sold/donated a lot of them. I tried to be realistic about whether I would use them or not. Some I have kept just for the beauty within, mostly the Norwegian knitting styles. I now have my craft books and binders contained on half of a bookcase. But I rarely pull them out, I just go online and find something else to make. LOL! I did recently get rid of all my cookbooks except the one given to me as a wedding present from a favorite aunt. Again, all internet when I need a recipe.
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Oh, I can imagine it’s hard to let go of patterns and knitting books. I don’t have that many, but I do treasure the ones I have.
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oh the books!
i have sorted and gotten rid of a lot each of the last few moves we made.
last winter, we got some bookshelves i like for our living room, and i unpacked all of my books (finally!) i got rid of a few more, and then proceeded to buy some more. most of the books on my shelf i have read more than once – i do keep them to reread! a few are there because i like how they look. and i continue to take a few to the thrift store when i realize they aren’t my favorite, or i need more room for other new books!
your bookshelf is a very pretty piece of furniture!
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‘Thank you, we’re really happy with it. Before 2020 one big store used to have beautiful Indian furniture. That’s where this one came from. We did add three extra shelves though (they were really far apart), so I’m not even sure it was meant to be a bookcase 😉
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I so hear you on books, I am the same about them. I find it really hard to let them go and I rarely if ever re-read books. I have so my books that I owned as a child in boxes in the loft, in fairness I have read them all to my own children over the years but I cannot part with them. Home educating the children means we have a large collection of books on so many different topics.
I do occasionally purge the shelves to make room for new ones. We have built-in book shelves (my husband created them all) in every room in the house except the bathroom. Some rooms just have one very long one others like the living room have many. I suspect we have many hundreds of books in our house!
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Ha, after my rant about not wanting to have that many books, I feel a bit of a sting of jealousy thinking about built-in bookshelves in every room. Oh wow! 😉 And homeschooling would have been such a great reason to collect books. I tried to start doing that for my kids, but in the ’90’s schools were very hyped about looking everything up on the internet…
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