1.26.2012

Goal #5 Book Clutter

Reading is an amazing hobby. It educates, entertains and can whisk you away to places as far reaching as your imagination can travel... just open the pages and away you go (no batteries required). Purging books is like purging friends somehow...

Goal #5;
Edit book collection. The primary goal is to release the commitment of reading so many of the books that have made their way (with honorable intentions) into the house - a realistic time limit of one year to read it should be helpful. Secondary goal is to make every book have a real home in the correct bookshelf.

Background: Like so many others, I love a good book. And I have a hard time letting go of a good book too.  It's too easy to happily pick up a few books at the thrift store that look interesting (or that the kids might like). The problem lies in the sheer QUANTITY of books that I am still trying to find time to read! A massive bookshelf is not enough. My kids each have a good sized bookshelf... but all their books don't fit either. It's hard to find what you want, and worse, it's a heavy burden with so much yet to be read (exciting, but still a burden when the time just isn't available).

Challenge: Set realistic expectations for what can/should be read in the next year. Go through the ones that have been read and decide if they are worth reading again... if they are, can they be found at the library? Also see if any of the books in the kid's rooms are not enjoyed or outgrown (we do this regularly, interests change often). Then sort which may be useful to the school library, and the rest can go to the charitable thrift store... put the boxes in the trunk of the car to leave immediately! Let them go to be experienced by the next eager reader!
___________________________________

Verdict: Some success, it was a challenge to actually convince myself that there wasn't enough time in a year to read them all... brutal choices had to be made for this goal!

Process: One bookshelf at a time. Every book was pulled off the shelf to be categorized, inspected for damage and sorted. This gave me the wonderful bonus of putting the "keeper" books in logical order as I put them back!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Ah, books are always a challenge for me as well though I'm getting better and closer to my goal of fitting them all into one bookshelf. I just today dropped off at least a couple dozen cookbooks. I agree getting the boxes out of the house quickly is a good idea. I load things into the back of my Jeep and when it's full, take a trip to Goodwill to empty. If it's out of the house, there's not nearly as much temptation to pull something back out.