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August 10, 2006

It's Just a Lot of Paper

We have made the very difficult decision to liquidate our book collection. Adam and I have been clinging to a ridiculous number of books for many, many years now. We are both avid readers, and both worked for some time in bookstores. We even had a little idea for a while that we'd someday run a bookstore. However, a bricks and mortar bookstore just isn't a viable option these days, for the most part. We moved over 30 boxes of books this last move, and it's just getting ridiculous. They were in boxes for nearly three months before the move, and I don't think we missed them one day. I had a conversation with a friend about all of this, and she told me that she'd read and liked the thought that books tie us to old ideas, from another time in our lives. This is definitely true of myself. Why was I hoarding all these books? To look smart for company? Because I will ever read any of them again? We decided it was time to let go. The goal was to reduce the book collection by 30% and I think we've reached that goal. Granted, they are still in the house, but I'm methodically listing most of them on half.com and have been shipping packages on a pretty much daily basis. We kept our favorite fiction, anything remotely art-related, books with true sentimental value, and things deemed "current reading." I have rediscovered the library, which I look forward to sharing with Lily as she gets older.

I still have a stack of oddball books that lack ISBNs, are ancient, weird, or whatever, that I can't list on half.com. This seems to be rich fodder for some sort of contest or giveaway. I think I need to have a contest to come up with a contest. I'll be thinking on the subject, and in the meantime, leave a comment or shoot me an email if you have a good idea for criteria on which to give away misfit books.

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