Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

Book control

40 replies

Quattrocento · 05/04/2009 11:56

I need some tips on book control for my books.

There are a LOT of bookshelves for adult books in the house. I am NOT going to get any more shelves. But the books keep on coming and I cram them into the shelves sideways and stack them up in double rows. Then the piles start. Piles of books in the bedroom and the bathrooms and the kitchen. Until they get to a point where I know I have to have a PURGE.

But I am having trouble with the purging process, I don't know when I will want to reread a book. Take The Bell Jar. I don't think I will reread it but I might want to. Even if I don't want to read it, the DCs might. This sort of dilemma occurs to me with every single book.

How do you decide what to purge?

OP posts:

Gentle · 05/04/2009 23:06

I like your fifth category!

My ex was a terrible collector/hoarder and this helped to cure me of my book hoarding habits. What value does a book actually have if does not have the space to be used, looked at and cared for? It becomes a brick with words on otherwise.

I only keep books that I KNOW I will re-read or refer to. Not might, not maybe - only the definites. I have it down to 2 large bookshelves for me (DH needs a lot of reference for work, so he's in charge of the book monoliths in his workroom.)

The hardest ones to get rid of were books given as presents.

Yurtgirl · 05/04/2009 23:09

But LGP surely if you desired a book that much you wouldnt get rid of it in the first place?!?!

I have owned for example a new copy of Captain Correllis Mandolin for 4 years - never opened. If I got rid of it I wouldnt suddenly desire to read it, having not done so in all that time!

My method works for me

Gentle · 05/04/2009 23:09

For the category "Dimmest possibility that I might want to re-read" - a lot of trashy, current novels and classics fell into this one for me - I pass the book on as quickly as possible to someone who I think will enjoy it and tell them not to worry about getting it back to me, or suggest they pass it on to someone else who might enjoy it.

For the last ten years I've never felt the need to chase one up and get it back.

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 05/04/2009 23:12

I think it depends partly on whether you are a rereader or not. I have this conversation with friends a lot. Some never reread a book, some rarely, and then at the other end of the spectrum there are people like me who almost prefer reading a familiar book to a new book. For me, there are hardly any books I've enjoyed enough to finish that I wouldn't want to read again.
Whereas if I am not enjoying a book, I feel fine about abandoning it halfway through.
I have friends, OTOH, who couldn't bring themselves to do that.

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 05/04/2009 23:15

Should have probably said that because I moved around a lot in my late teens and early twenties, I ended up abandoning all of my books eventually. The loss of my books is connected with a difficult time in my life and while over the years I have rebought many of them secondhand, I probably have a bit of a hangup about letting go of any.
And a new bookcase is almost certainly cheaper than psychotherapy.

MadBadandDangerousToKnow · 05/04/2009 23:20

LadyGlencora - Yes, I feel I have to persevere to the end of a book (even those that take two years because I intersperse them with books I'm enjoying more) but almost never reread them.

nooka · 06/04/2009 01:17

I think I have rebought maybe two or three books. Some years I might only purge a shelf or so of books, so it's not a bonanza of throwing out, more a slow and steady thing. Some years I'll think I'll keep hold of this because I might re-read it, and then the next year I'll realise I didn't feel the urge, and away it goes. Oh and yes the rules for reference books are different. I have four or five reference books from university that are now hopelessly out of date, and four Bibles (+ a copy of the Koran and the book of Mormon), which given that I am an aetheist is interesting

dweezle · 09/04/2009 15:14

It is very liberating to realise that you don't have to finish a book if you're not enjoying it, and can therefore get rid immediately.

Purged our books when we moved 3 years ago and got rid of approx 60% due to space issues. Criteria were:

Have I read it? 10- 15% of books were unread so they were earmarked to be read, and any carp was recycled immediately.

classics - if you can easily get them from the library (i.e. Dickens, Brontes, Austen etc) then get rid.

modern classics - see above - can't forsee a time when libraries will not carry 'Midnight's Children' et al.

Books you know you will never read again even though you liked/loved them. For me, this applies to things like Steinbeck's East of Eden. Great holiday reads, but I know I won't want to read it again.

Keep any books which you read and re-read. I have several which I read every two or three years and would get seriously antsy if I couldn't lay hands on them when the need to read overtook me.

Keep lovely editions of books you like even if they are classics etc..

Original poster

Quattrocento · 15/04/2009 22:49

Update

I have packed and carted 12 boxes of books to the charity shop. I am feeling very naked now. It's true to say that I have not in the last 10 years even opened the collected works of Oscar Wilde, but now I really really want to reread the Importance of Being Ernest. And Lady Windermere's Fan.

If this lasts much longer I will have to go and buy another copy.

OP posts:

TheFallenMadonna · 15/04/2009 22:53

I could never purge.

I did move to a smaller house for 5 years and had boxes and boxes of books in the loft all that time. Unpacking them when we moved again was so wonderful. I re-read loads, and didnt buy any new books for, ooh, weeks.

Loft storage is the way to go...

Original poster

Quattrocento · 15/04/2009 23:00

I'm seriously regretting this purge now. Would it be truly mad to go and buy some of the books back (and another set of shelves)?

OP posts:

TheFallenMadonna · 15/04/2009 23:03

Box them Quattro - store them and rediscover them!

As for buying back the ones you've given away - it's for charity

Bleatblurt · 18/04/2009 21:30

I had a purge last year. I still had boxes full of childhood books never mind all those books I hated or had never got around to reading. It needed to be done. I've had NO regrets and felt that since I was so brave () that I deserved a book shopping spree to fill up the hole in my heart a few bookshelves.

MIAonline · 18/04/2009 21:51

Just think of how much joy those books will give to somebody else, that has always helped me when I have taken a box of books to the charity shop and have regretted pondered my decision.

yappybluedog · 18/04/2009 22:19

oh no, we did warn you though

Flip

1 2