book em dano

remember hawaii five-o?  at the end of each show jack lord would hand over the bad guy and say "book em dano".  i remember little snippets of television life all the time but i think that is my all time favourite saying. however this post is actually about books and the book problem i have to deal with.  i have eighteen months to weed out my books before we move into our condo, down to a manageable number that won't leave me all sad and weepy.  

here is a set of bookshelves in our (read my) office at home.  there are several more bookshelves scattered throughout the house, not to mention book piles on the floor.

i have been reading about the methodology of decluttering.  the gist of the message is that you should plan to get rid of every third book!! it would take me forever to rearrange all the books so that every third book was a book i didn't want...or should i go to a second hand book store and buy books i don't want and place them in the strategic third position?

i do have some ideas on how to rid myself of the friends, family and neighbours that live on our shelves. 

twins will be separated.  in fact, this particular set of twins may be given up as pair.

old school friends, go manage someone else's small business.

 

   siri hustvedt, you and your lovely husband, paul auster, the two of you will be sleeping over on a new shelf at the condo.      

now i just have to avoid places like this because you can get led down the wrong garden path in no time and be in a book store.  kath suggested that i just take my books to the end of the driveway, put them on a nice table, make a pot of coffee, put out a vase of flowers and open up a book store for the day.  it could work  

but don't be afraid to leave me a book recommendation in the comments, i promise to get rid of a book before i buy the one you recommend!  please don't even start with the library thing, i end up with collection agencies after me.  

oh crap, i just went over to visit our friend tangobaby and she has this good reads thing going on that i never saw before.  just what i need!!!  more books.  ok, i'm off to join good reads like a good girl.                                                                                                                                                                                                              margie

                                               

Comments

[Kath]

One word for you, LIBRARY.
I am sure that some of the books on your shelves are books I couldn't bear to part with but also couldn't afford to pay to have them moved or stored so I entrusted them to you. Please, feel free to give away the books that have my name inscribed on the front.
Now that they are out of my sight, I do not miss them.
I no longer buy books. I borrow them from the library. You'll see, it's liberating! cheaper! less dusty! and just as good!
xo
Kath

[robin bird]

oh good lord girlies i am getting behind on your blog and we can't have that!
you won't like hearing what i did with my own humongous book collection...but i might as well get it out in the open so you don't think i am holding back on ideas.
i have a two pronged strategy. the first is to give every single paperback away. i know. i told you you weren't going to like it. the hard backs that are treasures i keep....but honestly my nest here is quite small and cozy and furniture space is at a premium so i don't have many. in fact the hardbacks i have are more teaching me kind of books about photography or photoshop or decoupage....did i say decoupage? i meant to say watercolor painting or something else more elegantly artistic.

then i asked for a huge ipod (storage huge not size huge) and with 80 gigabytes of space i have a quite extensive collection of books that a read to me. it is quite lovely to listen to Jim Dale reading Harry Potter as i drive down the road to the grocery store. i order the books on CD from the library and copy them to my hard drive, then transfer. it is quite acceptable to do this since our library system has a specific Mp3 website for books to download. if i am doing something illegal i am counting on you not to turn me in and anyway i don't expect you would be wanting to visit a sibling in prison.

so there you go. i no longer collect books that i am not going to read again anyway. don't get me wrong i have had a love affair with books my entire life. and rachel, my daughter is a librarian so devotion to books runs in our blood. but i have become ruthless in my approach to managing my small space home. i want beautiful things adoring the free spaces not paperback books that i love but won't read agin. leather bound, old and beautiful is another thing all together.
xox

[robin bird]

did i really write that long of a comment? sheesh you should kick me out.

[Kath]

Robin, we will convert her. I have adopted the stance that I am sending the books on as a gift to other people to share what I have found. If I don't do that, I want to hang on to them in a greedy, nasty way. Seems to be working.

K