Two months (and some days) have passed since I last wrote here, although I have, at least, been keeping track of my reading in a hand-written journal, as I resolved to do at the beginning of the year. As well, I've been making regular posts to my Instagram "books" account: Mater_Reads.
Each medium shapes what I say about what I read, though, and I have a particular fondness for the way this blog has worked in the past. I'm curious what it might become, still, even if I'm not here as often. I'm planning a few catch-up posts over the next week or two, as I settle into the new workspace we've set up for me -- just in time for La Rentrée. . .
Before those catch-up posts, though, I thought you might be curious about the culling process. As readers, many of us find it difficult to part with our books, and I'm a prime example. Four years ago this spring, when I packed up my campus office at retirement, I sent many of my books to the help-yourself table we kept by the Faculty office. I also carted several boxes home and found space for them in my study (I had a "room of my own" there, a large work surface and a wall of shelves) and on the many book shelves we had through the house.
When we left the island a year later, I culled boxes of books. Boxes and boxes. Genre fiction and topical non-fiction. Literary criticism that a year of retirement had shown me I wasn't likely to dive back into. Books I'd bought for myself and books I'd been given. Books about craft, cookbooks, outdated hiking books, parenting books. Ah, I culled. . .
But I kept as well. The boxes of books contributed considerably to the mover's invoice, but Paul knew how important my books were to me, and any title I hesitated over came along with us. Bookshelves were among the first items we bought for our new condo, and we lined two (opposing) walls of the second bedroom with them, furnished it with a leather sofabed, adjusted the shelves to make room for the flatscreen TV, and called the room our TV/guestroom/library. . .
And then last month, once again frustrated at having to move a project-in-the-making from our dining table back into a small work surface in our bedroom, a lightbulb flashed insistently above my head. Okay, not really, but I wondered if the TV/guestroom/library closet could be converted into an office space.
First, though, some space needed to be cleared in the room itself. I warmed up with the CDs. We'd played them very rarely in our three years here, having gradually succumbed -- with some reservations, admittedly -- to Sonos + Spotify. Our stereo system was well over twenty years old, acting up occasionally, and we aren't likely to buy a new one. Easy to read -- and finally obey -- the writing on the wall.
Once the CDs had been boxed up and sent away, I applied some of the same logic to books. So many I've been hanging onto with the idea that I will read them again. Many I have, many I know I will. But with a branch of a very good civic library system a three-minute walk away, I can probably borrow most of those titles readily. So to stay on the shelves this time, books didn't necessarily need to "Spark Joy," but they needed to evoke one of at least three responses: a significant memory of where and when I'd read the book or of a particular passage or character or mood; a strong desire, nay, even intent, to reread, or at least search out a passage or two; a wish, sometimes a need, to tell others about the title, to recommend and/or proselytize its virtues. . . .
Since I've been working on this post for over an hour now, and this is my second day at it, I'm going to take some advice from myself, as noted in this page from my Lists Notebook (not its official title).
See there, when I didn't get either my Workout or a Reading Blog post accomplished Today? "Tomorrow" was yesterday, and I spent that hour I mentioned, but the post wasn't done before we had to get to our Italian lesson (we didn't want to be late to our first class!). And this morning, having spent another fifteen minutes at it, rather dismayed at the idea of what I still want to tell you about this Book-Culling process, I looked at my list again and read that little encouragement I'd added a few days ago : "can be short" (Do you do this kind of self-talk in your Lists? Does it help? Do you pay attention to yourself or ignore? Asking for a friend. . . )
I think my younger self was wise, and I think it would be okay if this post were short. To achieve that, and get myself away from the keyboard, I'm going to make this a "to be continued" post. . . .
When I continue (very soon, I promise), I'm going to tell you a bit more about the process, about the way those pages you see above represent a sort of Marie Kondo approach to the letting go, even if they made it much longer. I'll tell you how much money I made selling the books to a local secondhand bookshop (I didn't get rich!), and I'll share a few discoveries. And I'll tell you which book I'd been meaning to order a copy of -- ever since reading Raynor Winn's The Salt Path (the last entry in that 2+months ago post). . . and then found I'd already bought a few years ago and forgot about because it was lost in my own bookshelves!
Until then. . . .if anyone's still reading this blog, I'd love to hear your experience with book-culling. Can you cull books? Have you? Might you? Or do you tend to keep the books moving after you've read them? Have you switched completely to e-reading to avoid the hoarding and the dusting? Or do you hope to die surrounded by every book you've ever owned? Do tell. Please. . . .
Each medium shapes what I say about what I read, though, and I have a particular fondness for the way this blog has worked in the past. I'm curious what it might become, still, even if I'm not here as often. I'm planning a few catch-up posts over the next week or two, as I settle into the new workspace we've set up for me -- just in time for La Rentrée. . .
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| I listed titles and authors of most of the books I culled. . . . |
When we left the island a year later, I culled boxes of books. Boxes and boxes. Genre fiction and topical non-fiction. Literary criticism that a year of retirement had shown me I wasn't likely to dive back into. Books I'd bought for myself and books I'd been given. Books about craft, cookbooks, outdated hiking books, parenting books. Ah, I culled. . .
But I kept as well. The boxes of books contributed considerably to the mover's invoice, but Paul knew how important my books were to me, and any title I hesitated over came along with us. Bookshelves were among the first items we bought for our new condo, and we lined two (opposing) walls of the second bedroom with them, furnished it with a leather sofabed, adjusted the shelves to make room for the flatscreen TV, and called the room our TV/guestroom/library. . .
And then last month, once again frustrated at having to move a project-in-the-making from our dining table back into a small work surface in our bedroom, a lightbulb flashed insistently above my head. Okay, not really, but I wondered if the TV/guestroom/library closet could be converted into an office space.
First, though, some space needed to be cleared in the room itself. I warmed up with the CDs. We'd played them very rarely in our three years here, having gradually succumbed -- with some reservations, admittedly -- to Sonos + Spotify. Our stereo system was well over twenty years old, acting up occasionally, and we aren't likely to buy a new one. Easy to read -- and finally obey -- the writing on the wall.
Once the CDs had been boxed up and sent away, I applied some of the same logic to books. So many I've been hanging onto with the idea that I will read them again. Many I have, many I know I will. But with a branch of a very good civic library system a three-minute walk away, I can probably borrow most of those titles readily. So to stay on the shelves this time, books didn't necessarily need to "Spark Joy," but they needed to evoke one of at least three responses: a significant memory of where and when I'd read the book or of a particular passage or character or mood; a strong desire, nay, even intent, to reread, or at least search out a passage or two; a wish, sometimes a need, to tell others about the title, to recommend and/or proselytize its virtues. . . .
Since I've been working on this post for over an hour now, and this is my second day at it, I'm going to take some advice from myself, as noted in this page from my Lists Notebook (not its official title).
I think my younger self was wise, and I think it would be okay if this post were short. To achieve that, and get myself away from the keyboard, I'm going to make this a "to be continued" post. . . .
When I continue (very soon, I promise), I'm going to tell you a bit more about the process, about the way those pages you see above represent a sort of Marie Kondo approach to the letting go, even if they made it much longer. I'll tell you how much money I made selling the books to a local secondhand bookshop (I didn't get rich!), and I'll share a few discoveries. And I'll tell you which book I'd been meaning to order a copy of -- ever since reading Raynor Winn's The Salt Path (the last entry in that 2+months ago post). . . and then found I'd already bought a few years ago and forgot about because it was lost in my own bookshelves!
Until then. . . .if anyone's still reading this blog, I'd love to hear your experience with book-culling. Can you cull books? Have you? Might you? Or do you tend to keep the books moving after you've read them? Have you switched completely to e-reading to avoid the hoarding and the dusting? Or do you hope to die surrounded by every book you've ever owned? Do tell. Please. . . .