I really really love books. From my point of view, the house will not be finished until the last of the shelving is built in. When I was a boy I was a desperate and dweeby member of the Puffin Club and read as much as my pocket money allowed. From then on I have accumulated box after box of books. I have ranks of (Iain) Banks; mazy backstreets full of Dickens and Corinthian columns of Penguin Classics. For most of the last 4 years my little darlings have been in boxes in the garage. Now P menaces them like Herod with a hangover. For her the answer the Malthusian difficulty I have with the sheer number of books I possess is obvious: throw them out. But how can anyone, I ask you, throw a book away, even a raddled Penguin Modern Classic with yellowed leaves?
The answer used to be to give them to charity. However, when P turned up today with two boxfuls of the stuff I could bear to be parted from (in truth, they were mostly her holiday novels) Oxfam closed and bolted the door. I gather that most of the books dumped on them end up recycled in any event.
It is time to be strong. I will have to cull. Some of them I will hit with a spade and bury in a riverbank; others will have to be dropped mewling into the water in a sack. I know it must be done. But some were good attentive books that washed behind their ears and paid attention at school and somehow summarily executing them seems a brutal act. I would like to give these bright souls a chance to escape. Give them, as it were, a headstart, before my gap-toothed, hilly-billy pyschopaths and I start chasing them through the underbrush with a shotgun and a bottle of moonshine.
Would anyone, for instance, consider giving a home to the 12 volumes of Anthony Powell’s “A Dance to the Music of Time”? I will happily wrap them and send them through the post to you at my expense. This is a no obligation offer and, if things don’t work out between you, you can always have them sew footballs for a dollar a day.
Since I’ve never heard of Anthony Powell, I’d better say no. Plus it would cost you a fortune to send them to me.
Paperbackswap.com is the best thing for me. It allows me to get rid of books that I don’t want and allows me to collect Enid Blytons and Sue Townsends for my shelves.
I already have Dance …but you might want to try this lot
http://bookmooch.com/
anything else on offer?
Yes please. Would absolutely love to give this a go. Please say they’re paperback though. Otherwise cost of postage (to Belgium which I am very happy to pay) would be prohibitive.
And, um, like Heather, what else have you got?
You know how much I like free stuff. I don’t think my taste in books is as wide as my taste in music but I’m sure you must be willing to part with something I’d like.
I mentioned this to my brother because he gets through a lot of books. He said, “Just get him to send them to me.”
BW – I’m afraid the Powell has already gone to another blogger. ANyone interested in some Julian Barnes?
YD – what kind of books do you like? I’ll try and come up with something suitable.
Moobs, Sir, I know how you feel about books! They’re just not made to be parted with, I’m most shocked that P won’t let you build a library extension to the house, which seems like an answer. I’m scared now, does this day come upon us all?
I always find it hard when someone asks a question like that (what kind of films/music/etc…). I like biographies (especially political), Rob Grant’s books (I’ve got them, but if you’ve read them it might help); I liked Chuck Palahniuk’s “Survivor” and have his “Haunted” but haven’t read it yet. If you’ve got the Illiad, I’ve been meaning to read that but most libraries probably have a copy. I think it’s fair to say I read more non-fiction than fiction, but there’s not much in it.
My brother on the other hand reads almost exclusively novels. He’s got the Sharpe books, Harry Turtledove alternative histories, a ton of Star Wars novels and has recently started on the Iain M. Banks books.
Not knowing what you’re getting rid of I have no idea if this is in the slightest bit helpful.
http://www.bookcrossing.com
Oh, oh, oh, puffin club! I have a long service badge for the puffin club. I’m getting flashbacks of poetry competitions now.
When I was in Africa I was desperate for books. If you know anybody who lives abroad, start posting them books at random. Or try Books to Africa or something like that.
Or you could just put all your surplus books in a box at the party and let me have a rummage. I’ll bring a backpack to carry them away.
http://pesnikinja.blogspot.com/2007/03/blog-post.html#links
I have the same problem ^
My heart goes out to you.
Just ditch’em, Moobs. Harsh, but necessary. It’s surprisingly nice having the space back.
(this is from someone preparing to move continents, so I share your pain.)
I can never throw a book out. And neither could my father. When going through the books he and my mother left, I have found treasures between the yellowing pages that surpass the prose of Fielding or Hardy. Aged and tattered notes of love and longing that keep my parents alive, long after they have died.
Hmmm, I have books stored in a number of far flung places on my travels from Zim to London – my most favorites I have carried with me. I spent Friday finally emptying out the storage I have been paying (a lot for) for the last two years. 8 archive boxes. 1 X photos, 1 X rubbishy trinkets and 6 X books. When I think how many times over I have paid for those books I cringe. The photos are worth every penny!
Hope your party is wonderful, may your new home bring you much joy and now I am being summoned by two shrieking children…. my first sleep over and I am tired already!
Puffin. Oh, I hear you. So, so collectable. Collecting Puffins was for me like a kind of early Pokémon: I absolutely had to have’ em all.
Then Penguin Classics.
Then in recent years “A Very Short Introduction To….”.
….
I also cull. And I call it that too. (Is it a common word for the process?)
And must admit I semi-cull too. For example, as much as I loved “The Crow Road” and “The Bridge”, I hated “A Song Of Stone” and flung it away from me after I finished it. Sorry, Mr. Banks. (Nice chap in person, though).
Alas. Think I probably have enough Julian Barnes in my life..but will watch your future throwings out with interest.
Noooo! Don’t throw books away! Please send me anything that will otherwise end up mewing in a sack! And don’t forget I’m a literature student, so it would be as if you were some kind of benevolent benefactor.
I was also in the puffin club, which I believe acts as a kind of masonic bond to keep all books. Last big argument with Bruno was when he made the woeful error of suggesting that if we ever moved back to England, we wouldn’t bring the two rooms worth of books which I brought over to Switzerland rather than jettison.
Aw Moobzy. How awful. And poor P. as Harod is not the best role in the world to play.
The Feng Shui experts state that we hold onto things because we do not trust that we will ever find them again. And that we should surround ourselves only with things that we love. If you love them, you should keep them. We’ll put together a blog fund for more book shelves.
And maybe it’s time to love something new.
I never gave away my Joyce or Satre. These ratty copies have been around a while and I love them. I look at the Dubliners now and say, “I will not pay some jerk all of my brother’s money to not print my books”. It makes me laugh.
If your giving away Dickens, I’m quite fond of him.
I love books too and have owned probably over a 1000 in my lifetime but I have given away or sold most of them. Now I go to the library or immediately give away a book if I buy it and read it. I decided it is good for my chi to keep the books moving instead of letting them gather dust in my home du jour.
We have a great bookstore that sells new and used books. I took a bag full of books just last week and received $50.00 store credit. My house is tiny and I could never keep them all. It’s a shame, but it’s so much fun having that store credit to go crazy with. And I went crazy.
When my neighbour moved she had a big bonfire in the garden and burned all the books she didn’t want to take. Hardbacks too. Cloth bound hardbacks. It was really hard for her, what with me clinging to her ankles, weeping and hurling abuse in equal measure.
I used to be just like you. In my flat in London I had hundreds and hundreds of books crammed into every nook and cranny, plus tons of art books. But then when I moved to the States and rented out my flat I had to get rid of them, and consequently sold the lot to a used books dealer round the corner who gave me a few shabby pennies for my loot i.e. he ripped me off, but who cared, I was rid of them and he took them off in his car. You will be relieved, really, to be rid of them when you sell them on ebay or whatever, for how many books do we really read more than once??
I was a member of the the Puffin Club too! Six degrees of separation eh? to think I might have been at a book reading and rubbed shoulders with your nylon safari suit back in 1975 eh? The mind boggles.
I was just like you on this until very recently. I think I finally just got fed up with all the STUFF accumulating around me. Plus, I realized that I could probably just get a copy at the library if I really wanted to re-read something. Not the same, I know, but at least I can now park my car in the garage. Ha!
I watched a show about those terrible hoarder people who keep each and every thing in their homes. They were so overrun with gunk that they could not even walk through their living room or cook in their kitchens. Anyway, the report showed that they have more neural connections to say a receipt from 1982 than a normal person. Perhaps you have the same neurosis.
I recently piled books in a “to get rid of pile. They are still there. I remember where I was when I bought it, where I read it, and obscure phrases from each book. Maybe there is medication in the work from a fabulous pharma that will help us both!
I cannot, ever, at any time, get rid of books. It’s impossible.
Even though I know I will never read them again. My excuses are always as sad as the worn and tattered paperbacks… but I fight on.
I feel your pain.
Oh, I also leave books in airports and on planes. I’d love to find one that someone left, but I always end up reading everything I’ve brought and then having to read the stupid goddamned Sky Magazine or something.
People, start leaving your books on planes for me!
Norah – your neighbour burned books? Thank goodness she’s moved – who wants to live next door to a nazi? Terrible.
CJ’s ‘bookcrossing’ suggestion is a good one…
but I’m not a person to give advice.
You can’t get in our spare room because of the books.
🙂
*sniffles* YES send all your poor unwanted books here to me … I will place them gently on the shelves next to their american cousins i’ve collected since 1975 and hauled all over HELL and back!
I too have taken a lot of abuse from those who have helped haul box after heavy side-splitting box, or dusted shelf after dusty shelf, but I wont give them up without a fight!
This is a time when the manana attitude of New Mexico pays off… I can drop off books I can’t sell at any charity thrift store in town and just walk away. They don’t sort things right away…so if they decide they don’t want the books, it’s on them to figure out what to do with them.
I like the idea of anonymously leaving unwanted books for others to find. Coffee houses, airports, train stations, the Underground all sound like good sites. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure…
You’ve probably done the dastardly deed and got rid of them all by now but… i collect (in a very low-level way) most children’s books (my husband will become all Herod-y on me if he ever discovers that I’ve asked for more) but…. any children’s books you’re getting rid of will be mst welcome and utterly treasured…