Shakespeare is out. Because, I mean, why?? why would you keep books of the plays?
Accountancy textbooks are out. Because I've been doing this stuff for years. By now I could write better ones myself.
Unused cookery books are out (Hugh Fearnley Whittingsall, it's not me, it's you),
Travel books are out. Because most travel books are out of date before you even leave the airport.
Books in translation are out. Zola, Gorky, Dostoevsky. Sorry guys, it was good at the time....but you are so heavy
Anything pre 19th century seems to be also doomed if it isn't in the Penguin Metaphysical Poets collection. Especially if it is Scottish. Yep Burns, and Sir David Lindsay. I'm looking at you. You should have gone years ago, along with Spenser, and Milton and Dryden.
Anything modern that is I was glad to get to the end of. Sorry Amis. It will be no consolation to you guys that McEwan and Barnes are staying I know....
Hey how's this for a definition of irony? I've finally got a bigger house with more room for the book collection, and then decided the books need culled.
I can't go on this way.
I can't kid myself that I am ever, ever going to re-read this lot before I shuffle off into some Sunset Retirement Home. I can't keep buying more and more bookcases. I can't keep looking at yellowing books and thinking why
The book hoarding started way back. My dad who was a reader, and a hoarder, encouraged me. He regularly put up more and more bookshelves for all my books. Which annoyed my mother no end. And the books became a Bone of Contention, until my dad died (this was unrelated to the Book Wars) and my mum sent all my books down to my flat in London.
When I moved from London to Edinburgh, the books, and several other boxloads of books read in the interim, moved with me. And in every move, from the flat in Edinburgh to the house in Cheesetown, from Cheesetown to Glasgow, from Glasgow to Cheesetown ever increasing boxloads of books have moved with me.
And then last week that's right, one month after I moved into the new house, I called a day on it.
If I couldn't see myself re-reading it, it went. How many retirement home residents do you see reading Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis.
Yeah. Thought not..
Accountancy textbooks are out. Because I've been doing this stuff for years. By now I could write better ones myself.
Unused cookery books are out (Hugh Fearnley Whittingsall, it's not me, it's you),
Travel books are out. Because most travel books are out of date before you even leave the airport.
Books in translation are out. Zola, Gorky, Dostoevsky. Sorry guys, it was good at the time....but you are so heavy
Anything pre 19th century seems to be also doomed if it isn't in the Penguin Metaphysical Poets collection. Especially if it is Scottish. Yep Burns, and Sir David Lindsay. I'm looking at you. You should have gone years ago, along with Spenser, and Milton and Dryden.
Anything modern that is I was glad to get to the end of. Sorry Amis. It will be no consolation to you guys that McEwan and Barnes are staying I know....
Hey how's this for a definition of irony? I've finally got a bigger house with more room for the book collection, and then decided the books need culled.
I can't go on this way.
I can't kid myself that I am ever, ever going to re-read this lot before I shuffle off into some Sunset Retirement Home. I can't keep buying more and more bookcases. I can't keep looking at yellowing books and thinking why
The book hoarding started way back. My dad who was a reader, and a hoarder, encouraged me. He regularly put up more and more bookshelves for all my books. Which annoyed my mother no end. And the books became a Bone of Contention, until my dad died (this was unrelated to the Book Wars) and my mum sent all my books down to my flat in London.
When I moved from London to Edinburgh, the books, and several other boxloads of books read in the interim, moved with me. And in every move, from the flat in Edinburgh to the house in Cheesetown, from Cheesetown to Glasgow, from Glasgow to Cheesetown ever increasing boxloads of books have moved with me.
And then last week that's right, one month after I moved into the new house, I called a day on it.
If I couldn't see myself re-reading it, it went. How many retirement home residents do you see reading Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis.
Yeah. Thought not..
13 January 2013 at 11:50
Kindle time.
13 January 2013 at 12:08
Libby - Removal men = kindles greatest fans...
13 January 2013 at 16:27
As longs as I find my way through the piles - NO! One has not go to extremes like the guy who actually slept on them - the static of the house he lived in was a bit at limbo, they had to remove them carefully and in layers - but basically, NO.
When I die I want to be put on the heap and have it set ablaze and have my library destroyed, may the illiterati stay behind, ha!
13 January 2013 at 17:46
Mr Mago - No. No. No. I couldn't spend eternity with Burns and Spenser...
13 January 2013 at 19:01
You're wrong about Shakespeare, I need him for crosswords, amongst other things. And caution is needed (remind me I said that when I start my annual literary detox, possibly tomorrow if I'm snowed in). I'd have missed 'Whoops!' (The Reread).
13 January 2013 at 19:05
“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa
I have some books that I have been dragging around for over 40 years, including Shakespeare, The Complete Works.
13 January 2013 at 19:38
Tim - Aha But I don't do cryptics. And I can't see any realistic chance of me starting in my (ahem) sunset years
Don't worry. Whoops hasn't been recycled (yet)
LX - You could have taken my individual paperback editions! Lighter to carry on pubic transport you know....
13 January 2013 at 20:25
Talk's one thing - actually throwing them out quite another ball game.
The only ones I can ditch painlessly are chick lits. Oddly I could get rid of about half of MTL's books without turning a hair.
14 January 2013 at 00:58
I tell myself that my humongous pile of books is preparation to tell the bedroom tax people that those rooms are just book cupboards.
14 January 2013 at 07:06
I love this post! I grinned/grimaced/frowned in sympathy throughout.
I was in the book business for several years, which meant I had complimentary copies on top of the ones I'd bought myself. When I moved from Jo'burg to Stellenbosch, I donated half my collection to a charity.
It helped not one whit. As soon as I moved into my Stellenbosch house, carefully bought with bookshelves in mind, the books started multiplying.
You see, I don't find books. Books find me.
Most of my books are in storage in South Africa, while here in Tokyo I throw out clothes and crockery to make room for more books.
PS: Shakespeare and Dostoevsky? (@_@) But ... but ...
PPS: Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis? It sounds rather intriguing. You can mail it to Tokyo. I've got a couple of rice bowls I don't really like, anyway.
14 January 2013 at 07:42
It will be 10 years in October that we moved into the flat where I am now. Before our move, many books went, and after the move, many more shared their fate.
And almost every year, we have a stall at the local book sale. So, for someone who is actually a trained Librarian, there are surprisingly few books to be found at my place. Maybe one day I will have a big house (ha ha, who am I kidding?) where one entire room can be dedicated to books...
14 January 2013 at 10:07
Yes, yes and YES. I absolutely concur. Life's too short. There are only so many books you can get through. Ditch the dead wood, keep the absolute faves and give up on the shite! Sarah xxx
14 January 2013 at 20:08
Pat - Don't worry Pat. They've all been handed into the big Oxfam book shop down Byres Road.
They'd take your TL's books I'm sure....
Mr Musgrove - Careful. If you have more than two copies of the Thrie Estatis in there, they'll rumble a tax dodge.
Rurousha - Sorry. The Thrie Estatis is currently at the OXam Book Shop down Byres Road!
Trust me. No really. It's no loss
Librarian - And as a Librarian here, your input has weight!
Misfits - Beyond impressed you managed to comment whilst fighting bushfires! For which books would be no good either
14 January 2013 at 21:35
I can't say that I've seen anyone, ever, reading Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estatis.
But I shall defend to the death your right to read it.
I, too, am a book lover -- but I am also a culler, someone continually concerned that I may need to leave at a moment's notice...
You just never know when you may go on the lam. :-)
Pearl
14 January 2013 at 22:37
I know what you mean. I have had to shift several tons of books with every house move. I've now got a Kindle...
15 January 2013 at 01:01
after living in a loft apartment for 12 years (a serious record for us) we had over 40 boxes of books to move, 2 years later we moved again and seriously culled the shelves by calling friends and offering free books, then we called goodwill and they picked up what was left. we now have a room set aside as our library and all the shelves are filled again. xoxoxoxox
16 January 2013 at 06:09
I built and moved into this house 9 years ago. All of my boxes were moved in the weeks before I actually moved in--stored in a big garage shed---
9 years later and most of the boxes of books are still in the shed
But I do have a 100 year old copy of The Poetical Works And Letters of Robert Burns that came with my family from Clydebank in 1924. Maybe I should bring it back and you can add it to your collection
16 January 2013 at 09:14
I've learned to cull my books carefully. You see, I was very strict with myself in my early adult years. If I didn't re-read a book within a year or two it went.
And then my mother gave away all of the books I'd left in Trinidad.
I never forgave her for that. Some of those were paperbacks it will cost me a fortune to replace. I still miss them.
Every now and then I just fancy reading one part of a book and then I go find the book and do that. This is why I buy books and don't use the library.
I've got a kindle and it's filling up rapidly.
16 January 2013 at 10:54
I cull regularly now. It's the only way to have room for the new books. A kindle is only part of the solution- I love my kindle but still buy real books.
I can understand the cull after the move- inconvenient but perfectly sensible :)
16 January 2013 at 14:05
Ah this did make me smile, Macy. We have a system in our house whereby culled books are put in boxes and then moved to the garage. Once in a blue moon we bring a box inside check before taking to the charity shop, whereby we find all those beloved novels and say, 'Oh I wondered where that had gone?' and it ends up back on the shelf.
16 January 2013 at 20:22
Pearl - And you always have the opting of shredding for kitty litter of course...
Curry Queen - I'm developing a theory that the more often you have to pack them, the less you feel like re-reading them.
Savannah - I like the idea of giving books away.... too bad a lot of mine were unreadable (except by Rurousha...
Clyde - Welcome back! Happy new year! And nope, it's OK. I've already learned To A Mouse by heart.
Roses - I think it's worse when someone else does the culling for you. Unforgivable!
Trish - Ah laughed at that one. And that's why my box went to Oxfam asaps.
17 January 2013 at 21:41
I have the same tendency to convince myself I'm one day going to reread all those dusty relics languishing on my bookshelves. Now and again when I'm feeling ruthless and efficient and sensible I realise I'm never going to touch them again and I root out a dozen or two for the charity shop.
17 January 2013 at 23:27
Nick - I used to be the type who would trail in behind you and buy them....
19 January 2013 at 11:33
Nachtrag