How can I choose which books to keep?

[glitterbiscuits]

Following my post about reducing the amount of clothes I have, I got some good advice ( I have 4 bin bags for the charity shop)

My next areas to tackle is books. I can’t fit any more bookcase in the house and have more books than I have shelves for. But like the clothes, I like them and ideally would keep them but I can’t.

Has anyone tackled a book mountain?

I keep books which were given to me by people I love, classics and books which I re-read ....also books which my children have yet to grow into and any with exceptional illustrations.

I had to down-size my book collection a few years ago. I decided to keep collections by certain authors (John Grisham, Stephen King) and on a particular topic (ASD naturally); and accept that other more random books I could re-acquire as Kindle copies.

I now have a "one in, one out" policy whereby any new book bought has to fit on my shelves, so something else has to go to the charity shop.

I got rid of all cookery books, as I get recipes off the internet now.

I kept some long fantasy series that I reread when I'm poorly.

I keep books with inscriptions or that remind me of times and places.

Classics are easily read online now, as out of copyright, so I'm more likely to keep modern books.

I’m good about decluttering but I do love books. I’d suggest keeping things that are sentimental and irreplaceable because they are a particular edition or have a message written inside. If you still have space, then I’d keep any nice sets as long as they aren’t too large and you still read them.

With anything else, I’d flip them so that the slides face the wrong way. Anything that you haven’t flipped in a year goes to charity.

Do you have access to a library or an ebook reader?

Buy more shelves!

Yep! When we moved we had a removals van with a sofa, bed, fridge and approximately 50 boxes of books. They numbered in the thousands! We still have too many but had to accept defeat and cull, this was made very difficult by my husbands life goal of having a non-fiction book about every subject.

We went shelf by shelf and had to be really strict about it, if you don't red the blurb and want to read it now then it goes. Thankfully British Heart Foundation collects because we sent them off with about 15 big boxes.

If it is easily available and cheap on Kindle it goes. If it is non-fiction and you have several of one type/subject, only keep one. If you have had it for years and never read it then it goes. If you are in doubt try reading the first chapter, if it doesn't draw you in, it goes.

I also culled a lot of classics Complete Dickens,Jane Austin etc.that I could get free on my Kindle.I then went through and removed things that I wasn't going to read again as freecycled them.I am currently looking for a home for some virago books.I am down to 4 bookcases.
I am also being strict on new books ,I get paper if I know I will reread it otherwise kindle.Ive also culled cookery books,I found I had quite a few that I only used for a few recipes so just photocopied the ones I wanted a packed off the books.

I did Marie knodo and loved it and 2 years on it has still made a huge difference, the only thing I regret is getting rid of books. A house should be filled with books - get more shelves!

I would get more bookcases if I could. I wouldn’t get rid of any books if I didn’t have too.
I’m not a fan of Kindles. I spend too much time with screens as it is.

I might start with some non fiction as the info goes out of date. Medical books, gardening books.
I’ve got all Michael Palins travel books. I haven’t looked at them in years, maybe they could go?..

This is much harder than the clothes sorting!

I'm better at giving away books if they're going to somewhere they will get use IYSWIM

I found it relatively easy to put together bundles for younger family members who were getting into older books, or when I gave a load to awomens refuge who were asking for book donations.

Just giving them away is hard though. We are real book hoarders, my 3 yr old has all of mine and hubby childhood books published in 70s/80s and some of her grandparents from 50s/60s although we have had to reclaim a few as times have changed and some had racist/sexist undertones.

I’ve just culled 4 boxes from our loft. This is what I did:

Took all the books out of the boxes, picked each one up and considered if it was a book that I thought of often, sometimes or never. Astonishingly I had two giant boxes filled with the most utter claptrap chick-lit that I had read in my early 20s. Most of that just made me cringe, so it went straight back in the box to go to charity. Also a dodgy soft focus illustrated sex positions book that DHs mates bought me for my 21st... ffs!

Books I retained were very few - ‘Atonement’ which I thought I’d lent to a friend, some poetry books, a very old complete works of Shakespeare that will be handy for DD’s English study and a few children’s books that I passed to DS. If I honestly didn’t think I would read it again I put it in the charity box.

Fiction - I got rid of any I hadn't enjoyed or any I wouldn't read again.

Non - fiction: only kept if still relevant and likely to be used

I allow myself to keep a few of my children's best loved books in the loft.

I was an awful book hoarder and never got rid of any but realised that a lot of the fiction was chick lit tat from younger years. Also with the change to electronic information we just don't need the same number of non fiction books.

Don't regret it at all and easier to see what's left.