Doing the Unthinkable

Yes it’s true, I am getting rid of even more books. When we moved from Portland back to Atlanta, I got rid of hundreds of pounds of them, mostly freebies from the radio show days. I culled more a few months ago for the yard sale, another hundred or so pounds, 6 good sizes boxes of them. Now I’m getting rid of even more. I’m just in one of those moods, depressed and unsatisfied with the mess I make of things, that I want to simplify. Also, the realization that of the thousands of books I have in the house, the last ten books I read included none of them. They were all either electronic books I read on my Handspring or things I checked out from the library. Is there really any reason to warehouse all these things? I’m cutting ever deeper. On the last pass, the standard was “If I had one year to read one book every day, would this be one of the ones that gets read?” If yes, I kept it. If maybe, I kept it. If no, it was gone. Now, if the answer is not yes, it is gone. In fact, if it is in the latter part of the year, it might be gone anyway. The standard now is “How hard would this be to read later if I don’t keep it?” A comon book that any library might have, I don’t need to have. I’m keeping my copy of Buckminster Fuller’s Synergetics and other oddball things. If it is of sentimental value that is one thing, but ordinary books are on the chopping block. I’m a packrat and I never feel like this, so while I do I must purge!

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Dave Slusher is a blogger, podcaster, computer programmer, author, science fiction fan and father. Member of the Podcast Hall of Fame class of 2022.