And Then I Hit Fiction Part 3

Some last thoughts on pruning my book collection (see previous 2 blog posts). I mentioned that I had more than 5000 fiction books in my collection. I cut more than 2600 books out of my library. I know if I'd had more time and could have done a second run through, that I would have culled even more.

In my previous posts, I talked a little about the emotion involved. About how difficult it was for me at first to part with a title and how that changed. I didn't expect to feel a lightness over shedding the books.

I do have an answer for part of it. My TBR (To Be Read) pile (and I use that word tongue in cheek) was over 1000 books. Let's face it, I was never going to read all of them, but I'd bought them and I couldn't get rid of them. So they sat there, quietly chastising me with their presence. I couldn't just give them away, right? I mean, I'd paid for them, they had to be read.

But everything changed with the move. Now I had a reason to get rid of them unread—I can't take all my books to Georgia. Getting rid of so much of the TBR pile was freeing.

While reducing the TBR drastically leads logically to lightness, I haven't figured out why getting rid of books I already have read gave me that feeling. And it did because I noticed it before I conquered my shelves with the unread titles. I'm still mulling that one, but maybe it was simply a matter of reducing stuff?

In case you're wondering what I'm doing with all the books, I'm donating them to the Hennepin County Library. They'll sell them and raise money to fund their programs.

This is the library system that I grew up using. It's thanks to the Hennepin County Library that I was able to go in and find dozens of books on sharks, Mars, becoming a writer, and all the other topics that interested me as a child/teen. It's a combination thank you and a gift to the future. I hope some other eager-to-read kid can find the same welcome, the same wondrous portal to information that I found.

So if you live in the Twin Cities, you might want to keep an eye on the library sales. My books are in pristine condition and some of them are hard to find. Yeah, I know I could have gotten more selling them online, but sometimes you just gotta bite the bullet and let it go.

And Then I Hit Fiction Part 2

This is part 2 of my task of pruning my fiction books. For part 1, please see last Thursday's post.

Going through my boxes of books was hard, really hard, but as the hours/days went on and I could see the boxes that were going versus the boxes that were staying, a funny thing happened. I started to feel lighter. I didn't have to own every book an author had ever written (unless she was one of my special authors). I didn't have to own every book in a series, whether it be by one author or a continuity series with many authors.

I could keep only the books I loved!

It was a good feeling and I started to be tougher on which titles I was holding on to. I also made a second pass through the Maybe Box and got rid of more. I also added more to the Keep Box, too, just so y'all don't think I suddenly went all Viking invader on my collection.

And then, on Day Four, I reached the shelves.

This was its own special problem. When I'd moved into my house six years ago, my To Be Read (TBR) pile and my keepers got jumbled together. It got worse when my mom put the books on the shelves for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful she did it because I was on deadline at that time, but she didn't know that Jayne Ann Krentz also wrote as Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle and Jayne Bently and she didn't know that I kept all these books together.

The bigger problem, though, was my mom didn't know which books I'd read and which ones I hadn't. I never crease a spine when I read—I'm anal like that—so they all looked brand new. This became a huge issue for me as I went through the bookcases. Did I not remember a book because it was forgettable? Or did I not remember it because it was part of my TBR pile?

You're thinking: Look at your spreadsheet, idiot. J That didn't help. Some books that were keepers, but that I'd read in the early days, had no rating attached to it. Was I parting with an old friend I'd merely forgotten and would regret losing? Or was I looking at a book I'd never read?

The new rule of thumb was to read the back cover. If I had no memory of it, and if it didn't sound like something I wanted to read now, it went. Nearly every historical romance I stumbled across was put into the Go Box. I used to read historical, but now I have zero interest in those titles. Books I knew I'd bought new and had never read also got put in the Go Box.

And ran across old favorites.

Usually, I remembered them as soon as I held them. The story would come back to me and I'd want to re-read it right there and then. I resisted.

I also rediscovered a few favorites. There was one I looked at and had no memory of the cover or that I'd ever read this author before—until I read the back cover. I didn't make it through the first paragraph before I was like OMG! I loved this book! How sad that it was lost amid the 5000 other books I owned.

And Then I Hit Fiction Part 1

On Tuesday, I talked about culling books from my non-fiction collection. Today, I'll talk about my fiction library.

Since the day I started buying books, I've almost never gotten rid of one. I have a distinct memory of turning in some books at a Used Book Store (UBS) in the Twin Cities and turning around the next weekend and rebuying some of them. Yeah, I am an Obsessive Book Hoarder and topping 5000 books proved that.

There was no choice now, though. My employer is only paying to move 12,000 pounds and books are heavy. Since I need things like furniture and bedding, a deep cut was necessary.

I started with the boxes. I had 48 boxes of books and I figured if I didn't have the title on my shelf to re-read, it was a candidate to go. All the titles (more or less) are in a spreadsheet I have, so I worked with that open on the table in front of me. This wasn't too much help on the early boxes because I didn't start recording my thoughts on the books I'd read until later.

The rule of thumb here was if I read the book blurb and had no memory of the story, it wasn't a keeper. There was one problem with this method, though. I was tempted to read some of these books. They sounded interesting.

Other books surprised me with how dated they felt. The time travel books were particularly susceptible to this. What was fresh in its day, now seemed overdone. I kept a few special ones that I remembered fondly, but the rest went into the Go Box.

I make this sound simple, so cut and dried, but it wasn't. I'm emotionally attached to my books. This has lessened from its peak, but it was still an issue for me. A lot of titles went into the Maybe Box.

There were authors, too, that had written some books I really, really, really loved. When I read a book that hit for me on all levels, I would run out and start hunting those authors' backlists. I had to have every book they'd ever written. Not all of them were as awesome for me. I had to accept that I could keep the books I loved and get rid of the ones that didn't pass the threshold.

 

The spreadsheet became handier when I started rating the books. In the early days, there were only number grades. 7 out of 10 was what I expected from an average book. Having a number grade made it easier because I was able to see what I thought of a book and get rid of it without reading the back cover. No temptation that way. :-)

Later, I began adding comments in addition to ratings. This was a double-edged sword. Like back cover copy, it tempted me to re-read the book I was looking at. Some of them anyway.

I didn't reach the shelves until the fourth day.

Obsessive Book Hoarder Prunes Non-Fiction Collection

One of the things I needed to do as part of my move from Minneapolis to Atlanta was go through my book collection and prune it. Considerably. I had over 5000 fiction books and I don't know how many research and reference books, so it was a big job.

I started with my office and the non-fiction. That wasn't bad because so many of the writing reference books were either for writers who were just beginning or were horribly out of date. Sometimes both.

What was interesting to me was how many books I pulled on the second pass through the shelves. I was certain I'd grabbed everything that could go the first time, but those were merely the easy ones. There were some books I didn't look at—I just knew I was keeping them. That was probably a wrong decision given how many I found that could go, but I love the edition of the AP Stylebook I bought in college and it's coming with me. :-)

There were some books I kept on pass one thinking they'd be helpful, but on pass two, I realized the internet made them unnecessary. Do I really need a History of the World book? One volume, no matter how thick, is hardly comprehensive and I can find the same overview information online easily.

This actually became one of my questions as I tested the worthiness of a reference book—would I go to the shelf and use it or would I just hop online and do a search? The titles that passed this test were generally topic specific and meatier sources of information. Maybe I could find this info online, but probably not as easily as in the book.

After I was done, I spent some time admiring the bookcase in my office. It looked so nice and organized. I even freed up enough shelf space that I didn't have to pile books two deep and could see what I had in one glance. It pains me to admit that I discovered references that would have come in handy if I'd only known I owned them.