News from the book wars

[pbray]

Made 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.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Supposedly when he reached 40 a particular British novelist did the sums on how many more books he could expect to be able to read before he died, and has ever since limited himself to that number in the house. If a new one appears, something else has to be pushed off his 'to be read' list.
I couldn't do that, I think. But I do cull, because some books are one-time things, and others I've outgrown, and they can find new homes, I hope.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

And my to-be-read stack is already over 100 books (I actually think it's over 200).

I'm hoping the books find new homes. And that I can properly care for the books I want to keep, instead of being so overwhelmed by the sheer mass of them that the wind up stuffed everywhere--including the damp basement.