The picture in the blog only shows a small portion of my collection. These two shelves go across the width of my desk, and the only reason I'm not using the top shelf is because I'm too short to reach any books I'd put up there. And yeah, there's another bookcase behind me.
Before I moved out of Minnesota, I culled the collection. I donated writing books to my local Romance Writers of America chapter and I gave others to the Hennepin County library. My fiction collection also was pruned substantially. All told, I donated about 2900 books.
Yeah, I know. Can we all say obsessive book hoarder?
Leaving fiction out of the equation, I don't really need all these references. I know I don't because instead of opening up the books, I do online searches. Oh, I might open the name books when a character is being particularly difficult, but usually that can be taken care of online too.
The writing references? They're collecting dust. Grammar and usage? I always do online searches for answers. So why am I keeping all these books?
That's the question I'm struggling with at the moment. Some of them are old enough that they're probably out of date by now anyway. Things move fast in our current world. And yet I don't want to get rid of any of these books. :-( I can make a case for some of them. Like some of the magic books (I used to write paranormal romance and might again) have information in them that might be difficult to find online. But so many of them could go. Really.
And they won't be leaving my house. At least not yet.
