But one aspect of the moving I will mention here is books. As in packing and packing off. Remember this? That was a mere year ago. And yet, when I starting in on my books on Tuesday evening, I ending up pulling 250 that are going to the charity shop or to the lending library at work. I already brought in 20 books to the office, and only 12 of them were left today. I'm going to bring in another 20 tomorrow, then most of what's left is going to Goodwill.
So how is it after the purging I did last year, that I could still chop another 250 from the pile? I had to be brutally honest with myself. There were books there that had been moldering in the TBR pile for years. I was probably never going to read them. Others I bought because of good buzz, oldies that were the favourite of many, but I hadn't read. Yet.
And probably won't now. I'll live. If I haven't read them yet, or, in some cases, if I've tried and put them back on the shelf to try again another time, well... INYIT.
Others were books I'd read and loved, but realize now that they weren't true keepers. Keepers are quite simply, the books you want to read *again*. These *other* books I was just fine with the memory of having read them. That was enough. I wasn't in love with the characters; I felt no need to revisit them. That's the other difference-- I love or am some how captivated by the characters in keeper books. The other books, I might have mostly loved the story, or the writing, but the characters never really hooked into me.
This is probably a good point to confess that during several trips to the bookstore this week (yup, the same week I culled 250 books from my shelves) I bought 6 new books. lol. I *honestly* was only in the store to check out the design/decorating magazines. Honest.
Apropos of nothing... I also bought this CD. Which, Kicks. Ass.
FourFour did a blog post on her recently with a sample track of one of the songs. Check it out. Or you can go to this feature the Washington Post did on herShutting up now.
6 comments:
Gone effing ROCKS! I swear it's one of her best yet. *g*
Good for you on cleaning out! I have a whole box that have been sitting in my garage since i moved in. I've decided that out of sight is out in a yard sale someday. Or if I donate them, they could add up to a nice tax deduction.
We miss you but we undersatnd!
LOL@design magazines
I think I'll be doing the same again soon, too. I've bought a lot of new books, but there are still books sitting on my shelf that need to go. They've been taking up space too long. Sigh. What's scaring me is that there are several of my 'old' favorites that are no longer holding my attention. :(
Amie, I've never read Lisa before. I think I had The Perfect Husband buried in the tbr pile, but it might have been a victime of the latest purge. :-P I read the excerpt of her recent book and was specifically on the look out of it (when I was checking out those design/decor mags ::coughcough:: ) But it's HB! I settled on getting Gone her last book and look forward to reading it soon.
I don't think we get tax deductions here on giving books to charities. >:-(
I did think about carting everything off with me to the new place, then having a yard sale, or setting up my own bookstore on ebay, or even saving them as give aways if I started to have a contest or two, but I just can't face packing them up and lugging them with me. I just want a clean new slate at the new place, which, basement aside, is smaller than my apartment on a room per room comparison basis. I doubt I'll be able to have the bookshelves in my room or the livingroom. I'll have to fix up the main room/familiy in the basement an set up the shelves down there. But I hate the idea of my poor lovely books down in the dark basement!
Jordan, I've recently had variations of that experience. I reached for previous keeper, only to find myself skimming most of it. It went into the UBS pile. And I didn't buy the author's most recent release which I'd been watiting for forever. And now I'm kinda scared that her other keeper books are going to come to the same demise... :-/
I've also read several glommed books of another favourite author, and while I enjoyed the books, only 1 out of the 4 I read was a keeper, the others went straight to Goodwill. In fact, there was one I was actually sort of bored with. =:-o. I skimmed to a particular love scene that has gotten raves over the years (and rightly so. I almost kept it for that reason alone) then closed the book, didn't even bother skimming to the end!
Let's face it, if you keep passing over the same books on your shelf, year after year, there's no need to have them there. You'll be just fine having missed the opportunity/experience of reading them, if they're right there at your finger tips and you still haven't jumped on them. :-/
One thing about all this purging, and seeing the concrete evidence of financial waste, I've become much more selective with book buying. I bought waaaaay less books last year than I had in the past several years. This year I'll probably be even more tight. And I'm going to have to make a concentrated effort to read at least one book a week from the TBR pile. Or read one book from the pile for every new book bought.
Vanessa me too....(and did I mention Gone rocks? LOL Sorry fangirl moment). Anyway I've still got another gift card burning a hole in my pocket. But I think I'm goin to wait. I've bought like six or seven new books this year when i SWORE I was going to go through my TBR pile.
Speaking of cleaning bookshelves I think I'm going to make that my chore for tomorrow. I'm running out of room and I cleand my room this weekend and they're everywhre nad it's driving me nuts!
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