Fellow readers and booklovers know how hard it is to get rid of books. While I am not nearly as bad as I used to be I still probably own several hundred books. But I have been thinking about paring down even more.
Yesterday I had a discussion with one of my best friends, Lynn. She is a passionate reader too and a Vine reviewer so she often gets books that way. But as she is now a devoted Kindle user she rarely buys books. Still, she had so many that their house was stuffed--her husband collects valuable record albums--that they had a storage unit to house about two thousand of her books along with some other things. That storage unit was costing them $600 per year.
Last week they decided to get rid of it so she called a couple of book dealers, two of whom bought her more valuable items. Then the guy from the famous Bart's Books of Ojai came out and took all the rest. They ended up about $2,600 richer, and now she is considering pruning her home's bookshelves out.
So am I. I have pared before and feel as if every book I now have I love. And I do. But I no longer feel the need to keep many. For me, the library is fine. But because I don't have any dead weight, so to speak, I haven't really had the motivation to begin. Until I saw this post from The Improvised Life, an e-newsletter to which I subscribe, this morning:
http://www.improvisedlife.com/2013/11/13/lighten-look-shelves-filled-books/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+improvisedlife+%28The+Improvised+Life%29Now I am motivated. I have seen shelves like this before but somehow her post has infused me with a new sense that this is right at this time. I don't have many "objects" since I object to mindless clutter--and I won't go out and buy any just to fill space--but I have a strong sense that this look is exactly what I want. More simple. Airier. More artistic while remaining readable. Just kinda neat, ya know?
I know what I am going to be starting tonight.