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…
