Booking Through Thursday

Just what I needed to discover, another meme.

Anyway, the question being asked this week on Booking Through Thursday is stunningly appropriate for me right now.

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 trying to prune down my library right now (and not having too much luck at it either). I try to pare it down every now and again, taking a couple of boxes to the used bookstore two or three times a year. However, a move is likely coming up in my future, so I'm really trying to trim things down. Regardless, this line describes my library perfectly: "Or does it blossom into something out of control the minute you turn your back, like a garden after a Spring rain?"

I guess the way I go about getting rid of the books doesn't exactly help either. The bookstore gives me credit back, and I usually end up taking up to a box of books back home (generally it's fewer books than I took to the store though). Said used bookstore has a really good history section and an even better science fiction/fantasy one. Library discards go to who-ever will take them.

The other thing not helping is my tendency to buy books and then not read them. I keep going "I could get rid of this....but....but I haven't read it yet and it still looks interesting/could be useful/is by an author I love..." and the book ends up back on the shelf.