more on being unmindful
perhaps because I like wasting time, or perhaps I truly need to have this process before I move on (who knows?), I've been thinking more about why I have the books I have.
The process goes somewhat like this: I glance quickly through my shelves, and each time, take something off and add it to a growing pile (3 boxes full, now) of books that will be leaving the house. Each time I do this, I look at the book, think about when I bought it, and then think about why.
There are a whole bunch of whys, and those go something like this.
1) I really liked book X by author Y. Really. So I get book X.
2) And book X is part of a series, so I get the series. [maybe I even read the series]
3) author Y wrote other books that are not part of the series, but as I mentioned, I really liked book X and as a result, I like author Y. So, I get all the other books that are not part of the series and thus, not really related to the contents of book X. [maybe I even read the other books]
4) For example, if book X had been the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I essentially liked the story of contemporary kids ending up in a high fantasy setting. So I'm now predisposed to like other books that explore this trope. [at this point, I'm collecting way too fast. Maybe I don't read these books right away... or ever]
5) Book X is a specific strain of genre Z (for example, if you're into fantasy, are you into high fantasy, urban fantasy, juvenile fantasy?), and I really liked the story, so I'm more inclined to explore other novels in the same strain in case I like other stories. [at this point, I'm collecting way too fast. Maybe I don't read these books right away... or ever... but if I do, this leads me back to reason number 1.]
It's kind of like watching a pandemic start. I can see how one of the first books I ever bought (Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds) led me to an entire collection of novelizations of fairy tales, many of which I love and want to keep, and many of which I feel nothing for.
Perhaps a part of me wants to categorize reasons in this way, so that I can look at a book and easily say "I bought this for reason 1, so I'd like to keep it" or "I bought this for reason 5, therefore I feel nothing for it, and it can go". But there's another part of my brain that wonders whether I knew this years ago when I bought these books (and I feel that I did), and .... well, at this point I'm a little lost for words. That *certainty* that I would always want to read these books, that absolute certainty. In some ways I still love to read - I borrow books from the library and read them with the same hunger I ever did - not as often, as I don't have the time. The books I read are still the same in one important sense - I still love those authors, those stories. But I look at my shelves, and the books I collected, and I feel nothing.
And this is how I know which reason to stop at. I feel as though if I had slowed down a little with the collecting, and paid attention to that feeling (by paying attention to all the stuff I *was* reading), I would have figured that out a lot sooner.
The process goes somewhat like this: I glance quickly through my shelves, and each time, take something off and add it to a growing pile (3 boxes full, now) of books that will be leaving the house. Each time I do this, I look at the book, think about when I bought it, and then think about why.
There are a whole bunch of whys, and those go something like this.
1) I really liked book X by author Y. Really. So I get book X.
2) And book X is part of a series, so I get the series. [maybe I even read the series]
3) author Y wrote other books that are not part of the series, but as I mentioned, I really liked book X and as a result, I like author Y. So, I get all the other books that are not part of the series and thus, not really related to the contents of book X. [maybe I even read the other books]
4) For example, if book X had been the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I essentially liked the story of contemporary kids ending up in a high fantasy setting. So I'm now predisposed to like other books that explore this trope. [at this point, I'm collecting way too fast. Maybe I don't read these books right away... or ever]
5) Book X is a specific strain of genre Z (for example, if you're into fantasy, are you into high fantasy, urban fantasy, juvenile fantasy?), and I really liked the story, so I'm more inclined to explore other novels in the same strain in case I like other stories. [at this point, I'm collecting way too fast. Maybe I don't read these books right away... or ever... but if I do, this leads me back to reason number 1.]
It's kind of like watching a pandemic start. I can see how one of the first books I ever bought (Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds) led me to an entire collection of novelizations of fairy tales, many of which I love and want to keep, and many of which I feel nothing for.
Perhaps a part of me wants to categorize reasons in this way, so that I can look at a book and easily say "I bought this for reason 1, so I'd like to keep it" or "I bought this for reason 5, therefore I feel nothing for it, and it can go". But there's another part of my brain that wonders whether I knew this years ago when I bought these books (and I feel that I did), and .... well, at this point I'm a little lost for words. That *certainty* that I would always want to read these books, that absolute certainty. In some ways I still love to read - I borrow books from the library and read them with the same hunger I ever did - not as often, as I don't have the time. The books I read are still the same in one important sense - I still love those authors, those stories. But I look at my shelves, and the books I collected, and I feel nothing.
And this is how I know which reason to stop at. I feel as though if I had slowed down a little with the collecting, and paid attention to that feeling (by paying attention to all the stuff I *was* reading), I would have figured that out a lot sooner.