My friend Sharon said that the best way to not read a book is to buy it.
Oh God, I think she is right. Over the years, I have developed the classic problem that creative writing students, English majors, classicists, writers, and book lovers in general have—I have accumulated too many books. As an English major and an MFA creative writing student, I have kept many of the books purchased for coursework. I have gone to Barnes & Noble and Borders, perused their shelves, and given them my money. I have also scoured used and abused bookstores with an agenda or have left things to chance and found that perfect book way too many times. Library books sales have yielded interesting choices. Some friends would occasionally give me books as gifts, and others leaving town have bequeathed me theirs. This left me with a constant bookshelf and space problem.
If clutter is a sign of unfulfilled potential, then the overflow in the bookshelves represented it in my life as a writer and a reader. I was very catholic in my interests, and there were always recommendations and ideas of novels that would help me model my own writing or books that seemed fun to read. Work, studies, and a personal life all have their demands, and as the books piled up, so did the procrastination. With every book, the collection became a daunting to-do list.
It was too easy to look at the shelves and feel overwhelmed. I hadn’t read this book nor this one, and I felt like it never was going to happen. Plus, I was crowded out by the things I once loved. The bookshelves took up too much room, and there was not enough space for all my books.
I needed to get rid of them. Taking them to used book sellers would be a full-time job because they can be picky. As someone who has worked in a used bookstore, I can say they won’t take any book. They have to know they can sell it. I could have gone the Amazon.Com route, but I didn’t want to deal running books to the post office. So, I simply donated them.
Eliminating them was easy. Deciding what to keep was hard. One rule was that they have to be able to fit on one shelf. Books on writing (such as John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction), grammar, and the Norton Anthologies on British literature remained, though I bid farewell to both Janet Burroway’s staidly conventional book* and Lance Olsen’s crazy one on creative writing. Ursula K. le Guin, Jonathan Lethem, and Neil Gaiman and a few other novelists are still here, but I said goodbye to much of my C.S. Lewis and Toni Morrison. There were tons of books I can’t even remember; however, I am pleased that I kept Walt Whitman, Frank O’Hara, American Splendor, and Tom Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I did happily get rid of Hardy’s Jude. I’ll probably mention other items in the remaining inventory sometime later.
Instead of building up a library, I’ll simply use the library. I can check out books, read them, and return them. It’s simple logic any child can understand. I read some books for free and I won’t have them to weigh me down. If I buy a book, I should put it back in circulation after I’m done reading it. I could either donate it (library, thrift shop, etc) or take it to a used bookstore to see if I could get some change for some coffee and a scone. The main idea is to get what I need from the book.
Here’s to reading and not having an attachment to books!
*This is one of those books that constantly appears in a new edition almost every year, though the first edition is absolutely fine. Unlike my response to John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction, I was not in a hurry to seek out the wonderful literary accomplishments of Ms. Burroway. I get the idea she’s now a one note writer who does creative writing books, especially revisions to the one that sells so well.
