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Book purge
Jun. 5th, 2020 06:26 pmAnother piece of setting up a permanent working space at home is I need to remove at least one bookshelf to make room for the table. I need to clear out some books. Actually, I could stand to clear out a lot of books.
It was a post at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
covidcoffeecorner that got me started on figuring out how to do it. It was about rereading books. I have to admit there are a lot of books lying around that I'm never going to reread. There are certainly a number that I might reread, but there are a lot where I'm not only never going to revisit them but will also avoid those authors completely in the future. So hey, they might as well not be here, right?
Once I got going in that direction, a couple other criteria occurred to me. So the things I'm looking at are:
The next question is what to do with them. Normally this would mean schlepping them over to the nearest branch of Powell's, which maintains a counter for people to sell them books, and then donating anything Powell's doesn't want onward to a good fannish cause that takes donations to sell at Orycon. However, Powell's has closed its physical stores until further notice, and who knows if Orycon is even going to be held this year. So into the garage they go for now.
It was a post at
covidcoffeecorner that got me started on figuring out how to do it. It was about rereading books. I have to admit there are a lot of books lying around that I'm never going to reread. There are certainly a number that I might reread, but there are a lot where I'm not only never going to revisit them but will also avoid those authors completely in the future. So hey, they might as well not be here, right?Once I got going in that direction, a couple other criteria occurred to me. So the things I'm looking at are:
- Rereadability.Treasured books by favorite authors stay. Less-treasured works can go. For instance, the "Man of His Word" series may be one of Dave Duncan's most popular series, but it was kind of a slog for me, so it goes; The Hunter's Haunt is one of his less popular ones, but if I could only take 5 books with me to a desert island it would definitely be on the list.
- Rarity: There is a small but nonzero chance that I might want need to go back to one of the recent high-profile Hugo nominees I have enjoyed. There is a similar small chance of going back to August Derleth's Solar Pons series (Sherlock Holmes pastiches) sometime. I'm confident I could find one of those recent Hugo nominees fairly easily, so they can go for now. Solar Pons, not so much, so he stays (though I did find a couple duplicates, which can go). Similarly, I'm keeping all the books on pre-colonial sub-Saharan Africa, even the one full of woo, because how hard they've been to find.
- Completeness: This mostly covers series which I'm in the process of reading, but I have uncovered a few books that I can't recall reading, so they get to stay until I've read them.
The next question is what to do with them. Normally this would mean schlepping them over to the nearest branch of Powell's, which maintains a counter for people to sell them books, and then donating anything Powell's doesn't want onward to a good fannish cause that takes donations to sell at Orycon. However, Powell's has closed its physical stores until further notice, and who knows if Orycon is even going to be held this year. So into the garage they go for now.
