We have had a "bit of a clearout" of books from our "library". The book shelves in the back room were over-flowing with books, and we have had a cull. Interestingly, it is the crime fiction that has taken the blows and bullets on behalf of its more literary siblings.
There is a box of around 150 waiting to be disposed of (to a friend at the running club), with lots of Ian Rankin, PD James, Lee Child, Andrew Kavlan, etc.
The question is: could you bring yourself to give away a chunk of the books you have read and enjoyed over the years?
Our main criteria was: would we read them again? Would we want to press them into the sweaty palms of a friend and say "you must read this!"? The books that made it into the box failed the test, I am afraid.
It gives me some empty(ish) shelf space to fill up again....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Lee Child! No wonder you're throwing them out!
ReplyDeleteI know I couldn't but I also know I couldn't give particularly good reason why. However, collections are different to random purchases so I do know I couldn't part with any Philip K Dick, Stephen Jay Gould or Philip Roth. Some are prohibited on, I suppose, sentimental grounds - any book is associated with a time and place of reading and are a memento of sorts. There's a third section of hard to find / out of print ones that might ultimately have some value. Finally there's a sense in which you're defined by what you've read so I'd like to think it could serve as a legacy or memento of me? At least this is what I tell Brid when we cycle round to this subject in our house!
ReplyDeleteI must admit that Judith does not have as much of an attachment to "stuff" in general as I do, and many of the books that we are getting rid of are hers. I have kept the crime writers that I consider more "literary" (such as Elmore Leonard, Reginald Hill), but it is quite a big cull of the genre nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteI have not got rid of any of the book club books (even though there is quite a bit of dross there!), but due to the sizing of our bookshelves, they are not held together in the same place as a collection.
For Gods sake, don't start a discussion about getting rid of books. If my other half is monitoring this blog there will be blood.....
ReplyDeleteActually, now the cat is out of the bag, I did have a cull of my books a while ago. Interestingly it did involve putting a lot of crime stuff in archive boxes and then in storage for future research/reference purposes (including a couple of the crime books that I inflicted on you lot). But if I didn't make a cushy living out of talking about serial killers and CSI Miami they would have been donated to charidee without a second thought. But lots of other stuff survived the cull on the simple grounds that I couldn't part with it.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it about some kinds of crime fiction that make them so transitory and disposable? I was on a train a few months ago where the guy opposite me finished his Geoffrey Deaver book before he reached his station and simply left it on the table when he got off (a man of rare taste, and no I didn't keep it..)