Spring Cleaning
May 10th, 2008 at 3:38 pm by Susie
I moved one of my really big bookcases today (boy, I wish I had a chiropractor boyfriend!) and now I’m culling the collection. Every time I move, I get rid of more books. After the divorce, I think I started with more than three thousand; now I’m down to about 500.
All the relationship books - gone. All the positive thinking books - gone. Political books? Most of them, too. Whatever I don’t know about any of that stuff by now, I’m probably not going to learn from a book. Kept a few of the cookbooks, tossed some. (Of course, I kept all the astrology books, and the writing books. And the literary fiction I haven’t read yet. By the way, I did come across a review copy they sent me of a book called “The Race,” about a John McCain-like GOP candidate running for president. Some very realistic behind-the-scenes political stuff that happens at a brokered convention.)
I used to have a real problem getting ridding of books until years ago, I saw this one Seinfeld bit. Jerry’s gesturing at a bookcase, and says, “I don’t get it. You read a book, you put it in the bookcase - why? To prove that you read it?”
That really got me thinking. So most of the books I keep now are for reference. I’m taking this batch over to the Salvation Army.
I also picked up the new Strat from the guitar shop this morning, where I had a nice chat with the owner about Baltimore, where he’s from. Thanks to him, Big Red’s all strung and tuned, and after I get my living room back together, I plan to plug in, sit down and play all night.
I’ve decided to call it “setting them free to do more good in the world.”
We’ll see what my daughter does. She might not be ready.
I’m 50 years old and still lug my college text books with me. Why? Cause I have some strange disease - there is NO earthly reason for holding onto them.
Six Stickley bookcases and counting. I give a lot every year to the local library, get a receipt, take the tax deduction. Books and plants. My weaknesses.
I have always been grateful to the roof leak that ruined my law school books right before I graduated or I’d still have most of them with me. I have thousands of books, plus four or five hundred my father gave me when he retired from teaching college history. They’re in a box somewhere. I can rationalize keeping my own college texts because my husband and I were both English majors, so our texts were classic literature. Cookbooks are always useful, and the knitting pattern books, but why in the name of Heaven I cling to every silly murder mystery I’ve ever read is far more of a mystery than contained in any of those novels.
Susie, what do you use as an amp? I think I still have a (probably not-functional) Pignose around the house.
I have an amp for acoustic guitars, that’s what I use for the Strat. Sure would be nice to have one of those little suckers, though. What’s wrong with it?
About fifteen or so years ago I donated all of my books, and there were a lot of them (though not 3,000, but I did have over 200 detective novels and a couple of hundred history books) to the library. I was moving for about the fifth or sixth time to yet another apartment and the thought of hauling all that weight again, and making room for it, well, it was time to cull the herd. I wound up with a couple of dozen essentials (Joy of Cooking, the Riverside Shakespeare, Ray Chandler’s Philip Marlowe novels, and so on) and I have made a point of using public libraries ever since. if you don’t use them, they’ll go away.
Other than it being 30 years old and unused for the last 25 of those, who knows? Maybe I’ll dust it off and give it a try.
I bought it in a little music shop in Chinatown out here, I suddenly remember. Somehow I think that shop has been replaced by one selling ducks (you know, the kind that has them hanging from the ceiling).
There’s also a Seinfeld: Bizarro world. Elaine walks in to the room, puzzled:”What are you doing?” All reply: “Reading…”. This is supposed to represent the antithesis to the Seinfeld ethos. That people should read. Recreationally, no less. I keep a barrage of books to recommend at my place, but I inevitably end up reading them more than I lend them. The rest I store in my folks’ garage, and which they do donate every so often, and make me help. All I’m saying is, don’t hoard, but don’t mistake your intellect for those of the target audience of Seinfeld, however funny it may be, because the two are engaged in different enterprises.
Playing a Strat all night has to be good for you.
I remember visting a girlfriend’s apartment once, after she had moved in with a new roomate. I felt something wrong and didn’t know what it was.
After a bit, I realized there wastn’t single book, magazine or newspaper to be seen. I always read. I’ll read the assembly directions to a TV cart. It was creepy.
The relationship didn’t last.
I keep the books I think I will reread. Most of them are fiction favorites and references.
And I keep cookbooks. Joy of Cooking is my favorite. I love how it explains stuff.