Breaking up is hard to do: on culling a book hoard

[fictualities]

Do you throw out books? Let me hasten to say what I mean by "throw out" here: recycle, in the case of books that you've destroyed with aggressive reading (broken the spine, written indignant notes in the margins, etc.), or sell to a used book store, or palm off on your hapless friends/relatives/students, or give away to an appropriate hospital

Comments

[gentlehobbit]

Oh my goodness. It's almost like you're describing me, although with one difference. I *did* manage to cull my books once -- I had to, as I was living on a shoestring and was renting a bedroom. To physically have space to live, I had to cull about half my books. It was a wrench to do so, and I still regret some of my decisions, but it was necessary at the time.

I applied these questions to myself: am I going to read the book again. Do I actively and currently need it as a reference. Does it delight or inspire me in a meaningful way. Now, I think, I'd ask myself, using your words, was the discovery of this book more like a marriage or a one-night stand.

It represents, in material form, the thought of another person. When you own a book, you are sharing your space with an object that continually represents to you that thought. Owning a book is, well, a little commitment to the book's contents. It's a commitment both to another person -- the author -- and in some ways to yourself. Owning a book says: yes, this living structure of

[fictualities]

am I going to read the book again. Do I actively and currently need it as a reference. Does it delight or inspire me in a meaningful way.

Yes! I ask myself these questions too. And man, that last one is tricky and is one reason why culling takes so long. It often turns out that a book I haven't thought about in years *does* inspire me in some way the minute I look at it. An afternoon devoted to culling often turns into an afternoon devoted to reading (which is what happened to me yesterday).

the cultural atmosphere, if you will, in which that story is presented.

Yes yes yes. The materiality of the book does have a powerful effect, one that's hard to define, but really important! Digital books are damn useful for search, but arent quite the same IMO.

[mieronna]

And that is exactly why I only buy books that I have either already read (and liked, obviously) or that I know I'm almost certain to like because they are by an author I like. I don't buy those that I thought were kinda all right, but will probably never read again. Required reading for Uni doesn't count of course. But once I have a book, I can't imagine letting it go, so I suppose one day, I'll have a huge hoard of books, too, and no way of cutting them, because, hey there are only those I like here! But that is in a distant future.

[mieronna]

Oh and also - a big fat word on the subject of real printed book vs. digital book. You can't just curl up with a laptop or reader in quite the same way as with a book. And you can't look up from whatever it is you're doing, catch sight of a much-loved book on the shelf and feel that little happy glow of 'Oh, hi there, you're still as lovely as the first time I touched your pages'.

[fictualities]

xactly why I only buy books that I have either already read (and liked, obviously) or that I know I'm almost certain to like because they are by an author I like.

That's a kind of restraint I can admire more than I can practice! If I weren't so prone to transitory crushes while I was in a bookstore, I suppose my problem would be much smaller.

I suppose one day, I'll have a huge hoard of books, too, and no way of cutting them, because, hey there are only those I like here! But that is in a distant future.

Yeah, this is where time creeps up on you. In any individual year, buying a lot of books isn't a problem. Over time, ack! Without intervention, a book collection take over an apartment, like an adorable little puppy that grows up to be a Great Dane.

[malinaldarose]

I buy books that look interesting because my TBR pile is so large that when I'm ready for them, they might be out of print. I also pick up books at garage sales that I might need or want to read someday. Consequently, I have hundreds of books that I haven't read. When I need to cull, I cull out of those, because it's far less of a wrench.

[fictualities]

my TBR pile is so large that when I'm ready for them, they might be out of print.

Oh, yeah, I've gotten into trouble that way too. The more likely a book is to go out of print, the more urgent it is to buy it -- and the more likely it is to get swallowed by the hoard. Ack!

[malinaldarose]

And then there are the stacks of books by my favorite authors that I haven't read because I don't want to run out!

[kestrelsparhawk]

What everyone already said. I was an academic with a whole office to keep books on, plus 10 or 15 bookcases at home -- a whole house. Now I live in a small one bedroom apartment, and have no outside office. I still do research, however, and I HATE reading a book online, even when they're available -- and also library books -- because I like to throughly mark them up, with nasty comments and highlighter and tabs in the margin

[fictualities]

a whole office to keep books on, plus 10 or 15 bookcases at home

OMG, the office! I am not even going to describe the amount of bad-faith deals I've made with myself, in which I set out to cull books and end up taking them to the office. This just outsources the problem.

I so hear the rest of what you're saying. There's a tension, isn't there, between this --

is this theory out of date?

and this --

many of them things that were printed in the 60s or 70s or 80s and are no longer in print.

Sometimes books that are severely dated in various ways also do contain something interesting or important -- but they're out of print, and are highly unlikely to get back into print ever again. So I'm left struggling with this very complicated Culling Calculus, trying to decide whether losing access to Book X forever is a risk worth taking.

What do you get out of them that the internet won't give you? I've been able to get rid of a lot of pretty basic texts that way.See, this was my original thought -- I could just ditch a lot of

[kestrelsparhawk]

So I'm left struggling with this very complicated Culling Calculus, trying to decide whether losing access to Book X forever is a risk worth taking.

Exactly! Perfect description! And I'm lousy at the Calculus -- whenever I give up a book, reasoning I'll never need it again (I vividly remember a Roland Barthes semiotics text) just a few weeks later I'm wanting it to check something.

See, this was my original thought -- I could just ditch a lot of stuff that's now available on lineI thought that too. But in my field, it's the theory texts I'm always needing, and when I want to check something, I'm usually in the throes of writing and want it NOW. Even stopping and running to the library was annoying -- and now it's stopping, calling the library, asking for ILL, and waiting forever until they locate a copy of what I want and get it shipped from wherever trackless continent it exists on. Not to mention I don't always remember author and/ortitle and just have a sense "it's a red book." Try THAT with interlibrary loan

[katallison]

I recently did this very thing (massive cull of an oversized book collection), preparatory to moving across country. In my case, I think it was made easier by coming to understand an excellent point you make: that often hanging onto a book is hanging onto "Ghosts of your earlier self ... a false sense of changelessness in a world of change." And those ghosts and delusions were a big part of what I was trying to expunge by the cross-country move

[fictualities]

a big part of what I was trying to expunge by the cross-country move.

*nods* Yes, I know something of what you mean. I moved this summer -- not across country, but any move is a pretty dramatic change that forces you to evaluate a lot of your priorities and ask what you really want to do for the next chunk of your life. Having to pick up every single possession you have and decide what, if anything, to do with it does force a major life redefinition.

The older I get, the less I am driven to own *stuff* if I can get the use of the stuff when I need/want it and saddle someone else with the hassle of storage, maintenance, organizing, dusting, etc. etc. etc.

Gad! yes. In my old age I'm getting increasingly reluctant to shop for anything at all, because the time/effort costs of ownership often outweigh the Shiny Sparkly Thing.

got the collection down to about two full-height shelves. (*fist-pump of triumph*)*admires* WOW, that is extremely impressive. I've set a goal of culling my collection by a third (this after a couple of