Book people - want a laugh?

[fred_mouse]

I think I've mentioned previously that I signed up to the 52 week unclutter challenge already. Week 7's challenge is 'books and bookshelves'. The full link is here, but the laugh out loud point was the first dot point of 'today's task'. Quoting the relevant bit:

TODAY’S TASK: DECLUTTER YOUR BOOK COLLECTION AND BOOKSHELVES AND PURGE ALL BOOKS THAT YOU NO LONGER NEED.

• Go through your entire book collection
  
• Keep your favourites and ones that you cannot part with
  
• Donate ones for purging to a second-hand book store or sell eBay etc
  
• Minimise your cookbooks and only keep ones you actually cook from
  
• Rearrange your bookshelves with the books you’re keeping and consider organising them in alphabetical order for easy access.
  
• Store cookbooks together, textbooks together etc.

They also say laugh worthy statements about If you have lots of books just lying around the house, it’s most likely that you really don’t have a proper bookshelf sorted or even a few cubby areas for books and an implication that this might mean you don't know how many books you own (I mean, sure, I don't know the exact number. But I know it to an order of magnitude -- my catalogue count plus <100 uncatalogued for reasons + all the picture books)

Comments

[athousandsmiles]

I lost most of my books (and a lot of other stuff) in a flood many years ago. I have no idea how many I had. Upwards of 500 I'd say. I only replaced a handful, and when Kindle became a thing, I happily latched on to that, because losing physical books cured me of my need to have them. I know a lot of people hate e-readers, but I think I was sort of traumatized by the flood, so for me it's nice to have all my books in e-form.

I think I make decisions based on that trauma. Like, if there was another flood/natural disaster coming, what would I want to save or what would I miss most? It may not be healthy, but there it is.

[fred_mouse]

Sympathies on the losses in the flood. I don't know how I'd deal with losing some of the books, because they are family heirlooms, and completely irreplaceable (I know, because I have been trying to get copies of some, so that the kids can have their own). But most of the rest I'd be able to deal with, because there are always more books.

The what would I save sounds like a sensible though to have had. Fire is our big risk here, and I know just what I'd throw in the car, depending on whether it was hours, minutes, or leave now type evacuation.