How to do a book cull

[KiposWonderbeasts]

I’m struggling. We have bookshelves everywhere, double stacked, squeezed into every corner. I still have over 50 books I just can’t squeeze in.

I am a re-reader and these are old friends. We’re a family of bookworms and the collection keeps growing. I can’t read on a kindle etc, I find it actively off putting.

I did a big sift 10 years ago, another one 4 years ago and one 2 years ago, so all the obvious contenders are long gone.

I need any tips, hints, approaches to reduce my library so we can navigate the house without stacks of paperbacks toppling. Trusting MN bibliophiles to understand my problem!

Get more shelves, that's what we do....

I’ve got a kindle and I’m stacking them up on there now.

Planning on turning our Hone office into a library. Can’t wait.

There must be some you know you're never going to reread..? Those you didn't enjoy reading.
Those need to be cleared out.

I just donated all my books, probably not what you want to do but I'm moving and need to be ruthless. It felt oddly freeing. No doubt the collection will grow again though

One in, one out?

Are there books you know you could easily get hold of at the library if you fancy re-reading them?

I recently sold 2 thirds of my books. It was brutal, but there was no way I could keep them all. A big criteria for me was would I want to read them when life was crap and I was really short on time. The fair weather books got culled, the books that I reach for in the hard times stayed. Also, instead of 'might I want to reread this' ask 'would it upset me if I couldn't reread this'.

You have too many, regardless of any excuse (eg you are all bookworms, they are old friends, they carry emotion etc). So do not buy more storage.

Take a category. I did this recently with Archaeology & History. My much beloved books by a certain gorgeous individual have been republished multiple times since my copies. So mine are out of date. If I wanted to read them again (and actually I am no longer interested in that field) I would buy the latest updated edition. So they went. Actually to a local school who were thrilled.

My next purge related to the DC. When a book is stored under the spare bed and the lovely DC have never asked to retrieve it - you know it can go! So I bundled and sold bundles on facebook selling sites and ebay. DC get the cash, but not the electronic payments. (I do the work - it seemed a fair split!)

Check the local online media pages - Nextdoor, facebook, freegle. I bet you have isolated individuals pleading for reading material. Feel good that the books are going to their next loving home.

We still have too many books but we are moving in the right direction!

I am drowning in books since lockdown. I buy lots and always managed to keep it under control by leaving them at the free for all bookcase at the train station and they were always snapped up.

I got rid of over 40 yesterday after a wise friend told me “they can still be your friends, but they don’t have to live in your house.”

Excellent point!
If I could easily get them at the library I can get them out of the house. They can bring happiness to other people.

Just because a book was a gift from someone special doesn’t mean I need to keep it. Also a revelation. The book has done its job, now pass it on to someone new.

It’s still slow going.

I learned to love my kindle and am putting books on there are paper ones become a little too worn from re reading.

Otherwise I just asked myself how long I go between reading the same book. Some it had been 8 years or more. So I read them one more time then charity shopped them on the basis I didn't need them for the next 8 years again. If I regret that I will borrow from the library or buy it again.

I am tossing most of my novels. It's liberating. Or giving to charity shops, rather. My elderly parents have moved to all kindle books which they think are marvelous. I don't like re-reading lots of times, though. Maybe twice in my life is enough. I would like to go book browsing today, actually. I kept losing ones or damaging them from library, but can buy most cheap enough.

I'm currently reading this & think it will stay on my shelves a while. Very good if you have dark sense of humour. True story about a Chicago kid dodging gangs and drugs, writing poetry to his unrequited love, trying to be a chef, encountering violence lately. Oh, and rowing.

@Lalalatte

There must be some you know you're never going to reread..? Those you didn't enjoy reading. Those need to be cleared out.

All of those go regularly. The local Little Free Library gets our quick reads. It’s when we think the other one of us will like it or think we’ll fancy it again that it gets put on a shelf.

Must be more ruthless.

That Makes sense, with me , although dh and dd are also readers as well there is not much overlap so I know if I'm done with a book it can go.

@Lalalatte

That Makes sense, with me , although dh and dd are also readers as well there is not much overlap so I know if I'm done with a book it can go.

DH and I have a large overlap. In fact, if he likes a book on Kindle, he buys the rest of the seriesin paperback so I can read them too (I loathe eReaders).

DS1 and I share scifi and fantasy books, and collections of myths; I just gave him Karen Armstrong's History of Myth and Pullman's retelling of Grimm's fairy tales.

I check whether the book is available free online (at Project Gutenberg, Internet Archive, Hathi Trust), and if it is I give away my hard copy.
For other books I check the contents list, index and chapter conclusions for whether I really need to keep it. (Most of my books are academic or non-fiction.)

Books are meant to be read, not stored. Keeping a book in case you want to reread is cruel.

I live books. In our first flat, I had tbree bookcases. Then five. Double stacked. Then dHs Job moved abroad and we had a 13cubic metre shipping allowance for four of us. That's clothes, toys, who goods, kitchen stuff, baby equipment (not furniture fortunately). I could only take one Box of books. My reference collection went I storage. The charity book ship got most of the others.

Instead of thinking will I reread, think will I miss not having it.

I keep all the books I will reread - and I do re-read them. The others I put into one of those public bookshelves.
And I collect grammars and language courses, they take up a lot of space.

Think hard about what you put on the shelf in the first place. When I finish a book, I do try to be honest with myself as to whether I will really pick it up again in preference over a new book, or a proper old favourite. I take those that don't make the cut to the Little Free Library round the corner as soon as I can, before I can change my mind. If I wait for a bagful to take somewhere I inevitably end up fishing some out.

Also think positively about what you might do with the space if you can tetris of some bookshelves. We had a massive cull and ditched a couple of Ikea Billys a few years ago, making room for a second sofa and a lovely Hockney print to sit above it.

How many books do people aim for when culling or is it purely dependent on space? I've seen people on here say they only keep 30 books in a single bookcase and the thought makes me slightly cold. That's less than my TBR pile.

I think if you've got well planned adequate book storage then it dresses a room better than anything. Our playroom has a wall of bookshelves and that looks great and holds hundreds of books and there's room for more. Think that's important for the kids to have books as something ever present. Conversely, our sittingroom has not been decorated by us yet (it's currently yellow ) and has 4 bookshelves in it, all different sizes and styles and all packed with books and it doesn't look great at the moment but once we put in the fitted bookshelves I'm planning the feel of the room will be very different.

Everything I can't imagine reading again is going.
This group of books is very dusty. Should have gone long ago.

TBR pile... how long would it take you to read them all? Will you get bored before you finish.

On a related tangent, what do people do with books they've culled at present? I've sorted out about 500 of my late husband's recently (still have plenty!) that I will never read and don't want to keep (am moving soon)... but they're currently sitting in piles all over the living-room. None of the charity shops round here seem to be taking donations at present. I don't want to make money from them, just pass them on somehow to someone else who might be interested... (They mostly are interesting - just not my interests).

There are some online companies that buy books, and some charity banks (big containers). Freecycle is an option or Ebay for the collectable ones. They are recyclable paper/cardboard products otherwise.

Get a kindle I’ve hundreds now having a load more for Christmas

Over the last few years I’ve got a lot more ruthless about which books I keep.

I used to keep a lot of books because I felt I might like to reread them someday, but firstly, we’ve got a lot less space for bookshelves now that we’ve got a few DC, and secondly, when I had a good think about it, I realised that there were so many new books I wanted to read, that I actually wasn’t doing all that much rereading.

So I had a number of culls, and these days, I aim to only keep the most interesting and most loved books on my shelves. I also tend to keep earlier parts of trilogies etc until I’ve finished with the whole series in case I want to refer back to an earlier book.

@BlanketyBlankAgain is your local library taking donations at the moment?

My local library is accepting donations of books that are in good condition.

There’s also a Little Free Library near me that will take books (just not too many at once!)