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News from the book wars
Jul. 4th, 2011 06:18 pmMade more progress this weekend on Operation Book Cull, after having two great insights--
First, I realized that I could speed up the sorting by using the same tactics I use in going through my closet--separating things into definite keepers, definite donations and the all important third category of maybes. The maybe pile gets a temporary reprieve and then is reevaluated during the next cleanup cycle. Adding a maybe stack to the culling options has sped things up. I'm still culling more books than I keep, but no longer taking minutes weighing each margin call.
The second realization was simple math-- if I read 100 books a year for the rest of my life, I'll never manage to reread all the books that I currently own. So holding on to thousands of books forever makes no sense, especially when I plan to keep buying (and reading) new ones. Not that I'm going crazed, mind you, I imagine I'll still have over a thousand books when I'm all done, maybe two. But the days of an infinitely expanding collection that I'd stopped counting when I hit five thousand books are over.
First, I realized that I could speed up the sorting by using the same tactics I use in going through my closet--separating things into definite keepers, definite donations and the all important third category of maybes. The maybe pile gets a temporary reprieve and then is reevaluated during the next cleanup cycle. Adding a maybe stack to the culling options has sped things up. I'm still culling more books than I keep, but no longer taking minutes weighing each margin call.
The second realization was simple math-- if I read 100 books a year for the rest of my life, I'll never manage to reread all the books that I currently own. So holding on to thousands of books forever makes no sense, especially when I plan to keep buying (and reading) new ones. Not that I'm going crazed, mind you, I imagine I'll still have over a thousand books when I'm all done, maybe two. But the days of an infinitely expanding collection that I'd stopped counting when I hit five thousand books are over.