I spent hours yesterday rummaging through my past and making some hard decisions. Up in my workroom, where I wrote most of my novels, are ten shelves stuffed with books I used (or thought I might use) for research. As I have no plans to write another book, it seemed a good idea to donate most of those books to our library's spring booksale.
There are books about Appalachia, the Cherokees, Asheville, Madison County, the Shelton's, the Civil War, the Melungeons, snake-handling religion, and various odd things that caught my attention. Sometimes I might have found no more than a line or two in a book to be useful--but even a few words could lead to a whole chapter.
Perhaps I should feel sad that the writing phase of my life is past--but I don't. It's quite freeing to pass these useful books on. Three heavy boxes full. And I've just made a start. Plus there's a HUGE amount of ephemera--meaningful only to me. But I have to sort through it and read and appreciate it before consigning it to recycling.
7 comments:
I have quite a large stash of books too, that I weed through and donate to two Little Free Libraries in my neighborhood, or to friends. My friends like mysteries, Christian books and gardening books, like me.
I think they’ll be a good addition to the library.
I've packed (or rather my son did) most of the books I want to keep. Then yesterday I discovered no recipe books available to make banana bread! Today with a more sober mind I figured out there probably were a few recipes available on line!
Some time ago, I gave away about 50 cookbooks of all kinds. All recipes are online now. I did keep a couple of books of southern recipes. I have dozens of books on writing that I need to donate if I reach the point health wise where I can go through them all. Paperback books, fortunately, can be recycled.
That was me commenting above. Forgot to ID myself.
Good idea to jettison what you no longer need to hold on to.
Once I got started, I found decluttering to be a hugely freeing activity - and surprisingly not difficult. Our local charity bookshop got most of my books.
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