Q: When’s the last time you weeded out your library? Do you regularly keep it pared down to your reading essentials? Or does it blossom into something out of control the minute you turn your back, like a garden after a Spring rain?
Or do you simply not get rid of books? At all? (This would have described me for most of my life, by the way.)
And–when you DO weed out books from your collection (assuming that you do) …what do you do with them? Throw them away (gasp)? Donate them to a charity or used bookstore? SELL them to a used bookstore? Trade them on Paperback Book Swap or some other exchange program?
I’m currently a bit of a hobo, and am living temporarily at my boyfriend’s family’s house so I had to weed everything out before I moved into a much smaller space! I gave books that I thought I would never read away to charity, and sold a couple that I knew would fetch more than a fiver. I gave up swapping books because I just swapped books I didn’t want for more books I wasn’t that fussed about!
Basically I’m not very good at weeding books and have probably collected more since I had a clear out! I don’t think I could throw books out however tattered they were – I’d probably give them to charity and let them do the dirty work (terrible I know!). I have a horror of books being destroyed or used for purposes that are not ‘useful’ (something I ranted about in A Crime Against Books?).
I also put all my beloved ‘read’ books into storage at my grandmother’s house which I am visiting this weekend so I’ll be able to re-unite with them.
Basically my book collection is definitely on the wild and rambling ‘garden’ side of things (love the analogy), but I like it that way and one day I hope to have a library.
Do you have trouble ‘weeding’ out your book collection?