One of the delightful things about being a writer is that every so often your publisher sends you a few books (if a foreign or special edition is coming out) or an entire box of books if your new book is hitting the shelves. Of course, there's a downside to that, too. You soon have too many books for one closet to hold.
So, I began by trying to restore order to my closet, but quickly moved on to the much more fun task of redoing my shelves. That means assessing every book I own and deciding what stays and what goes. It's not an easy task. Here are some of the books that I'm mulling over:
(This one I'll probably keep. I love Elizabeth Berg's books)
(This one's easy. It's an interesting and useful book, especially if you write about ranch life. I've read it cover to cover and then gone back to it for research many times, but I have two copies).
Seaward
(This was a good book and I love Susan Cooper's work. I've had her The Dark is Rising series on my shelves since I first read it more than 30 years ago, and I reread it every so often. It's a great series and winner of several awards. This book isn't part of that series, though, and I'll probably pass it along for someone else to enjoy).
The Classic Encyclopedia of the Horse
(I'm a bit conflicted about this one. I've had it on my shelves since I first started publishing back in the early nineties and it's been a great research tool. That said, I haven't delved into it in a long time, and it's taking up too much shelf space. It's probably time to say goodbye).
In addition, I have a number of favorite novels that I've repurchased as ebooks because they're the books I reread time and again, so I'm getting rid of my paper copies. Replacing old favorites is a slow process. I can't afford to replace all my keepers, but a few special ones go on my Kindle so that I have them at hand on those days when I just can't decide on something new to read.
So how about you? Have you cleaned your shelves lately? Gotten rid of books you no longer want? Discovered books you've forgotten you owned? Found some old favorites you want to revisit?
5 comments:
That's quite an eclectic mix. My daughter sorts out our bookshelves. Nothing is gotten rid of, she just alphabetizes & woe betide if you don't put a book back in it's proper place.
Mary, I have my books organized mostly by type, but I change the categories now and then, and that's always a good time to purge. Since I have only so much shelf space, things get messy as I keep adding books. Choosing which ones to let go is always difficult. I always hope that they find good homes.
Wow, I love the sneak peek of your library! So please don't prolong their agony, let them stay, pretty please? Anyways, I'm a book lover as well over here but I wanted to lessen my tasks aside from reading books, so I went to having personalized flash drives for the series that I have. My first ever was the Diary of a Wimpy Kid (imagine how many of them), and I stored them in a flash drive and had it personalized to know which is which. So far, everything's perfect, aside from my library, I also got my e-library growing!
Denise, interesting about the flash drives. I've never heard of (or thought of) storing books on one. My e-library is starting to get out of control. On my older Kindle I can sort them into folders, but even so, it can be difficult to find what I'm looking for. Not that I'm complaining too much since I'm the one who keeps buying books! :-D
Yeah, I'm also personalizing some of your folders or even a physical shelves you got in your home. My sister and I prefers the hard copy of books because we aim to put up our own library and right now. But I've also got some ebooks on my tablet but not that much.
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