Friday report

[adair]

I have not done much this week. I cleared out a bunch of books (in boxes in the garage) that will need to come back, at least for a while. We are enjoying the empty space, and the surfaces we cleared for Mike's visit. I hope that serves as an inspiration to let go of more books, and more paper reading, so this lovely space can stay. I do need to bring the books back in so I can sort through them and pull a batch to take to Books to Prisoners. Some day, possibly this winter, I need to pull books from my double-shelved spaces so I can see what is behind, and what I can let go. List making is needed, so I can find the books in back, and remember what I have. My LibraryThing lists need to be checked and locations noted. So much data to manage.

Comments

[fred_mouse]

Oh, I hear you on the managing of books. I still have some tagged with 'not seen in 2011 check', so I really feel the pain on that one. (I have teetering mounds of possibly uncatalogued books, and three kids rooms with books that I'm probably getting duplicates of because I don't already know we have them). Personally, I think we need to lose 1000 books to be under control and get rid of the temporary bookshelves in the games room, so I hope that yours isn't quite so bad!

[adair]

It's probably worse. My house is 1100 feet, with book overflow in every room but the bathroom. Now that DW lets us post a few pictures I should put up some from my house; there is a stack in the bedroom about 6 ft high, and that's the books that are not in bookcases there, or on the bedside chest or stacked on a little table reaching above my head. Letting go of books is hard, and somehow harder if it has been visible for decades. Someday I need to post about book removal problems; I suspect several people on unclutter have books as one of the difficult clearing problems.

[fred_mouse]

I, too, have books everywhere but wet areas.

I find books so hard to clear because they aren't an investment in now, they are an investment in a time that I will have at some point in the future. I can't read them as fast as I'm buying them, but I have an expectation that my rate of reading will far outstrip my purchasing power at some point, and so many of these books won't be available, because they spend so little time available these days.