(no subject)

[the_rck]

The dishwasher is running. I resorted to the desperate measure of cleaning out the refrigerator in order to fill the dishwasher, but I managed a reasonably full load.

I'm now contemplating which of Delia's toys I can get rid of when she's not looking. I think she won't miss the playdough dinosaur set. It's badly designed, and she figured out quickly that she couldn't do much with it. I'm not sure I can find all the pieces at once, so I'll probably throw it out rather than donating it. She might miss the playdough zoo animals but probably not much. It might be possible to donate that set. Delia had fun with it but never wanted to play with it on her own. She only wanted to watch me make animals. The singing birthday monster that my father sent her for her third birthday is going in the trash. The motor is going, and the wires in the limbs have started to protrude through the cloth. It might be repairable, but...

I might cull her crayon collection. Scott, without consulting me, bought her one of those huge boxes of crayons, so she's going to have more than enough. Maybe her pre-school could use the old ones. Do kids in those settings actually use the broken, peeled crayons or do they just stick with the ones that still look nice?

I'm also contemplating my to-be-read shelves. How many years is it reasonable to keep a book without reading it? I have books there that I've owned longer than Delia's been alive. They're things that look like stuff that I'd love. Well, like stuff that I *used* to love. They're longer or otherwise more challenging than most of what I'm successfully reading these days. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to read thick fantasy novels or thinky SF again.

I've even started some of those books. I know that they're good (the ones that I started that weren't are already gone). I just can't seem to read them.

I think I'm a bit afraid of getting rid of them and never being able to find them again if things do change enough that I can read them again. I also dislike the idea of buying them again if things change and the idea of having spent $$ and space on them just to discard them unread.

I'm doing less reading and a lot less re-reading now than I used to. I don't really expect to re-read anything that's on my shelves (barring writing fic for it) any time soon. That may change when Delia's in school full time. I don't know. The closest I get to re-reading these days is looking at the books on the shelf and smiling at them. Seeing books that I enjoyed reading gives me an echo of the pleasure I experienced on reading them. It's rather like waving at a friend and getting a hug in passing. That makes getting rid of books very, very hard.

I also won't know for many years which books Delia will be interested in (if any). I want to share the books that I love with Delia. My mother would say that anybody sensible would just assume that the library has everything that one needs, but I don't agree. Still... I've got a lot of books.

How do you decide what to get rid of?

Comments

[the_rck]

I haven't managed to finish a project book in years. Either I finish a book in a few days or I don't finish it. Once in a while, I come back to something months or even years later and finish it rapidly.

Some of the books on my shelf are things that I got a bit into (50-100 pages), rather liked, but got distracted from.

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

My criteria for culling already read books:

~Did D. and I both like it? (If not, the person who liked it more decides.)
~If we didn't both like it, it goes.
~If only I liked it (I can't speak for his criteria), can I remember what I liked about it, and do those things make it worth keeping? (Someday I will cull the majority of my paranormal romances because I know they're not great literature and taking up space. OTOH, I will not cull the stacks of manga from Japan, even if D. doesn't like them, because I think they're special and will definitely read most of them again, if only to practice my kanji recognition.)

For culling unread books:

~Is it something I'm likely to read, or was it bought in a fit of reading passion? (A shortish mystery fits into the first category; the majority of my philosophical tomes fit into the second one.)
~Is it something I'm likely to read within the year? (More than a year tells me to get rid of it.)

Just my $.02. I really, really hate culling my books and don't plan to do for a while yet, although I'll do a small and more merciful one when D. and I do a big cleaning before New Year's.

[the_rck]

I'm contemplating my collection of folk and fairy tale books. I've never opened most of them, but Delia's mostly likely only a year or three from being interested. Plus, I have all of the Lang fairy books. I hate to give them up even if I won't read them.

I also keep looking at my various reference and history books. I don't use them very much, many not at all, but it's nice to have them when I need them, and one or two of them would be good reading for waiting rooms. I don't know...

Getting rid of books for me is complicated by the fact that Scott hasn't read most of the books we own. He reads more slowly than I do and has less time for it. Periodically, I make a stack of five or six books that I think he might like (if I'm really organized, I add post-it notes about sequels, but that seldom happens) so that he can decide if any of them are things he'd like to read.

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

I agree that it's hard to get rid of books that you think kids might like. And what's funny is that some books take a while: I was given huge volumes of Grimm's fairy tales that I didn't like when I was Delia's age because they had no pictures; a few years later, one afternoon when I was home sick from school, I read them all and loved them.

Reference books are always useful, but you never know when they will be. That's tricky. (My parents' Slang Dictionary is always on the cull chopping block until it periodically wins someone a trivial pursuit game.)

D. is much the same, and it's complicated for us because our reading tastes are so different. (He won't read most manga, although I think I can coax him into Death Note if I don't over-do it.)

Grah, it's so difficult! Where are the "rooms of holding" when you need them? ;D

[the_rck]

I keep saying that I want to live in a TARDIS. ::laughs:: We once played in a superheroes game where we played ourselves with super powers. Scott's character, over time, developed the ability to recreate any vehicle that he'd seen in movies or TV shows. I've told him that I want that power. ::laughs:: I keep thinking of the storage potential.

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

This is crass. I ADMIT this is crass.

But if you decide to cull your folk and fairy tale books, I will take any you get rid of (I do not care what they are), I will pay for the packaging and shipping, and I will go through any category of books you like looking for things you might want in exchange.

And I think you should keep the Lang fairy books for Delia. I really, truly do.

That said, I would gnaw off someone else's arm for a set of those, and if you decide not to keep them at any point, I will buy them.

[/crass]

Other than that, I fail at culling books, my room is so full of stacks of them I can't get anything done. *sighs*

[the_rck]

If I do, I will let you know.

The Lang isn't a matching set. The Green Fairy Book is the odd one out because I found it in a battered hardcover edition rather than in a Dover paperback. Still, I suspect that I couldn't have bought the volumes if the used book store had had the complete set. They'd have been priced as a set and out of my range.

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

heh. Yeah. Those can be scary as hell, so I consider 'set' = 'one of each'.

Because it's insane. It really, really is.

. . . you know, karmic law dictates Delia scorn fairy tales for . . . I dunno. Horse books? Ballet books? Something. :P But I hope she likes fairy tales!

[booniverse.livejournal.com]

Culling...books?!? I understand the individual meanings but the word order confuses me.

Woah...I am totally the wrong person to ask about weeding a book collection because I tried that once long ago...mind you I only got rid of books that were part of a series that I couldn't complete (so I figured better to have nothing than a partial set)...and then about a year later I wanted to read some of the Indigo series, which I couldn't ever find book 4 of and thus culled. DOAH!

When Matt-Matt and I combined our book collection, we donated the duplicate books to the library and even that was hard. DUPLICATES! I did manage to finally let go of an unread copy of Atlas Shrugged after toting it around for 17 years and a Charles Berlitz book called Without a Trace after...oh 25 years but only after I realized that after 17 and 25 years I wasn't likely to ever read them. Reference books are much harder because you never know when that book on Identifying Asian mushrooms will come in handy. You know?

Actually, I just had a thought about that. What with this new fangled intertubes, I expect a good rule of thumb for reference books is "if you can get the info easily on the 'net and it's not a reference book that you've leafed through at least once in the past year, it probably can be donated".

I can't say what a good rule of thumb is for stories though.

[the_rck]

I like that notion about the reference books.

The problem for me with keeping all books is that book buying is the one form of retail therapy in which I regularly indulge. I end up at book sales a couple of times a year and bring home a full paper bag of books. It adds up.