The Great Book Purge of 2014

[athena53]

DH and I have gotten rid of tons of books (well, maybe that's an exaggeration). One very specialized category was 3 or 4 boxes of books he got from a former client- they were provided to his ad agency as samples (the client was the publisher) and when the ad agency went out of business, the client said they didn't want them back. DH rescued from the office dumpster. They were bibles but in multiple languages, a few scholarly commentaries and some such as a Greek-German New Testament that not many people could get excited about. We donated some to our church and our priest, in turn, donated some of them to the local seminary. I'm slowly selling the rest off on e-Bay; I even found a good home for the Greek-German New Testament. They're going for a fraction of the retail price but I figure most biblical scholars are penniless academics so I'm doing a good deed and bringing in a little cash. I also sold a couple of his old Sci-Fi books on e-Bay including a first edition of "Planet of the Apes".


The rest go to libraries and to the local second-hand store. DH buys paperbacks there, reads them and donates them back. I mostly get mine from the library.

 

[poorcarver]

We purged the out of date and uninteresting professional stuff long ago. However, I actually have the house with the room full of books. For me there is something so magic about being in that room. The bulk of the year I read nearly every evening for a few hours. Having said that, the room is more or less full, floor to ceiling and so I too have instituted a no buying without knowing where it is going policy. Plus I use the library's inter-library loan system and only buy books that I have read and know that I will re-read and must have. Plus, I am also building an electronic collection so that I have a lot of material at my fingertips when traveling.

However, if I were a young man I would go pure electronic and never buy a paper book unless I had to.

I am sure I am leaving a problem for my children to clean out but at worse case they call the dealer and take the flat price for the lot. No muss, no fuss.

 

[CoolChange]

....
Biggest hurdle every time is the fight against emotional attachment and a strange feeling of lose of self for things I don't use or even look at.

In a way it's an exercise in letting go.

Well said. Thank you for letting me know I am not the only one with these feelings. I have an irrational attachment to many things that I will likely never use again along with a love of physical books that I cannot really describe.

Just thinking about a major purge puts me in a state of melancholy that is hard to shake. But, hording is not conducive to the more nomadic lifestyle that I find very appealing.

Sometimes I think that a storage locker might be money well spent just to avoid these feelings; but, my [-]cheap [/-]frugal tendencies tell me that is a waste of money.

 

[John Galt III]

... Recyclers don't want them because of the bindings.....

Hmmmm.... At my recycling center they take hardcover books. They have separate bins for paperback and hardcover. In the hardcover bin there are always lots of new-looking textbooks on all sorts of subjects.

 

[athena53]

In the hardcover bin there are always lots of new-looking textbooks on all sorts of subjects.

The town where in lived in NJ recycled books. I rescued a few!

Sometimes when I'm throwing things out I mentally calculate what they all cost and realize it added up to a lot. Then I remind myself that I used and enjoyed the item for a time, that was the cost of the enjoyment, and I let it go.

 

[brett]

We downsized to a container. Had a large home with a wall of books. We like to read.

It was ever so difficult. It took at least four attempts. We gave away books to friends. We gave books to a local book sale that raises money to help people read. We called the local schools...took boxes of childrens books and school supplies over to them.

What has changed? We use the library much more than we used to-especially for ebooks. If I buy a book I either pass it along to someone or simply donate it to our local library.

We really miss our bookshelves. But at the end of the day they were dust collectors and we had no room. But we are reading more than ever.

 

[athena53]

I"m having a hard time letting go of the travel guides. Many are from places we visited and loved but are unlikely to visit again. Still, sitting here in my office and seeing them all on the shelf reminds me of good times. They're an anachronism now, of course, although I always start with guidebooks from the library when researching, then supplement it with Internet research. I like to have at least one paper guidebook with us and a good hard copy map, even though we're both very computer-literate and I've got a smartphone.


And then there's my giant dictionary. Everything is on the Internet now but I hate to throw it out!

 

[W2R]

I am trying to reduce my posessions in general more and more.

Gave away my entire CD collection a few years ago for example.

That's a great idea. I need to go through my CDs and see what I can get rid of. Sure, they don't take up much space, but if I don't use them, there is no point in keeping them forever.

I am sure I am leaving a problem for my children to clean out but at worse case they call the dealer and take the flat price for the lot. No muss, no fuss.

Back in 1981 when my father died, I took his books (mostly medical books) which otherwise would have been donated. They were a great comfort to me at that time and I enjoyed reading them for many years. 29 years after his death, I finally donated most of them.

 

[robnplunder]

We should have a giant bonfire with books we don't need. ;-)

 

[Focus]

What has changed? We use the library much more than we used to-especially for ebooks. If I buy a book I either pass it along to someone or simply donate it to our local library.

It seems to be a running theme in this thread. I stopped visiting the public library for a couple of decades, then rediscovered it about five years ago, when I realized how easy they had made it to reserve a book online from any city branch and pick it up at the nearest location. Then they added e-books, making it even more convenient.

I hope not everyone follows our example, though! Folks have to be willing to buy books -- electronic or paper -- for publishers to stay in business. They're having a hard enough time as it is. Worthy self-published works are few and far between.

I still love physical books, but many I've collected are things picked up over the years that "I should read sometime" - e.g. classics - or that looked interesting at the time - e.g. collections of essays, memoirs, biographies, history or contemporary social commentary - or other things that I've read and enjoyed at some point but may have since lost much of their relevance. Some are keepsakes of one sort or another - art books, mementos from places we've visited, etc. ...

Right. What seemed intriguing a couple of decades ago might not hold interest now. I'm tending to keep books in four categories:

1. Reference works that are still relevant, since I find it quicker to thumb through to the information I need.
   
2. Some large art books.
   
3. Collectible books signed by their authors.
   
4. Older, rarer books that are unavailable in e-book form and hard to obtain in paper.

I've also retained a row of books that I want to read in the coming months and then donate to the library.

It was ever so difficult. It took at least four attempts.

I suspect it's going to be the same for me. Thus far into this first big purge, about 500 books remain.

Biggest hurdle every time is the fight against emotional attachment and a strange feeling of lose of self for things I don't use or even look at.

In a way it's an exercise in letting go.

Very true. Our bookshelves are representations of us, right? I miss going to someone's home and looking at their bookcases to get a sense of their interests and pick up on possible topics of conversation. I can't very well ask to browse their Kindle collections!

 

[braumeister]

Another overlooked reason to keep old fashioned books is for research.

Picture a researcher seated at a large table with books spread out all over. Most of them have multiple bookmarks stuck in them, and many are laid out open to particular pages, while the person makes copious notes on a pad.

Pretty standard mental image, right?

Now try to picture the same person trying to do the same research with a bunch of pdf files on a computer screen. A lot tougher!

If you think about it, this is one of the big reasons why bound books replaced those long, rolled-up scrolls back in the day.

 

[photoguy]

Now try to picture the same person trying to do the same research with a bunch of pdf files on a computer screen. A lot tougher!

I used to have to look at a lot of different articles for research purposes. Paper definitely beats PDF but I would just print them out (I've killed way too many trees).

It got so bad at one point that I would have multiple copies printed of an article because I couldn't find my previous copy!

 

[BBQ-Nut]

I'm a mix of old fashioned and new. I got rid of a bunch of college text books and #1 paperback 'bestsellers' to downsize.


But have kept and will keep (for now) certain books not available on-line, oversized art books, specialty books, and other books with sentimental value.


If I actually sit down to read a 'book' - I still prefer the printed copy. I can't seem to relax and enjoy the experience with a laptop and a mouse/touch pad scrolling up and down.

 

[Live And Learn]

I went through this purge last year. I kept only those books that had sentimental value and art books. All others went to the library for use or sale.

 

[Sarah in SC]

I use paperbackbookswap for getting rid of unwanted books, but the only trouble is that you earn credits that you can use to get (you guessed it) more books. It does make me feel like they are going to a "good home" though. Like many, I made a commitment to lower my book purchasing expenses and use the library more often, and now my shelves are a bit less cluttered, but by no means empty.

I still have an entire collection of both John D. MacDonald books and (childhood fave) Dick Francis. Plus all of Ted Bell's books and Randy Wayne White. And various others I can't seem to get rid of...does anyone else have a half dozen of the Southern Living cookbooks or Better Homes and Gardens from the 1990s and before? I can't bear to send them away, though I rarely refer to them.

 

[ArkTinkerer]

I am gradually weeding out in advance of RE next year. In some cases its almost like seeing the children go. I have a large number of DIY, old machinist texts, electronics circuit guides, and other rather esoteric books that are getting hard to find. The purchase and throw away society has stopped producing books like this and the few that are produced are even more specific and more expensive. The history and fiction books I don't have as big a problem letting go. The out of date electronic reference books I have been clearing out but they use to have design guides and applications notes that are very useful even today. I guess I could tear those parts out and toss the rest. I guess the dream would be to find some young upstarts that would actually use some of this that has taken me years to find, acquire, and qualify as worthwhile. May eventually be my sons but that means holding on to the books for more years!

 

[W2R]

I am gradually weeding out in advance of RE next year. In some cases its almost like seeing the children go. I have a large number of DIY, old machinist texts, electronics circuit guides, and other rather esoteric books that are getting hard to find. The purchase and throw away society has stopped producing books like this and the few that are produced are even more specific and more expensive. The history and fiction books I don't have as big a problem letting go. The out of date electronic reference books I have been clearing out but they use to have design guides and applications notes that are very useful even today. I guess I could tear those parts out and toss the rest. I guess the dream would be to find some young upstarts that would actually use some of this that has taken me years to find, acquire, and qualify as worthwhile. May eventually be my sons but that means holding on to the books for more years!

(emphasis mine) Believe me, I understand!

The last time I did a book purge was just a year after I retired, and I simply could NOT bring myself to throw out some very esoteric, stimulating, and irreplaceable oceanographic reference books. Now that I have been retired for five years, have immersed myself in retirement, and have mentally extricated myself from activities related to my former career, maybe I'll be able to get rid of them.

 

[martyp]

At w*rk I had a pretty extensive library of engineering, science, and photography books as well as some old college text books. When I left I was able to give them to our local town library.

I have a small home and I have been very good about purging books 1-2x per year. First I select books that I know will be accepted by the local used book store. They give me store credit for these. I take the rest of the books to our recycling center. They have a book bin and there are always people there culling the books and then taking them to sell to other books stores or at flea markets. Actually they got so aggressive that the recycling center limited the time they could be there so they wouldn't intimidate the local residents who were dropping off books.

I've got a big drawer of CD's. They have all been digitized but my wife still likes to play CD's. Someday those will go too.

 

[trixs]

I am fairly young (33) and find this thread interesting. While 90% of my reading is accomplished on a Kindle I still love physical books. I even attend library sales and pick up boxes of books on the cheap. Why? I would love my own library and hope my 3 month old finds inspiration to read

 

[sengsational]

DW is spoiled with the large font on the Kindle, so never will read small font paper books again. Still have not done too much purging, but I built massive amounts of shelf space in the attic. Some day...

 

[Walt34]

I even attend library sales and pick up boxes of books on the cheap. Why? I would love my own library and hope my 3 month old finds inspiration to read

I grew up in a home where the walls were lined with books, they were stacked on top of cabinets and sometimes overflowed to the floor.

It was great doing all that armchair exploring, stories, and learning!