Living Purposefully With Books.
It means giving yourself permission to get rid of books--and also to keep them.
This week, I’m facing one of the most terrible and agonizing existential questions I’ve dealt with in my life, and I thought I would write about it because I suspect at least some of you can sympathize. The question, simply put, is this: what do you do when you have too many books? This is what I’ve been dealing with for the past few days, occasioned by the fact that my husband and I are in the process of moving our residence. It’s a question that’s come up before, and one I’ve always found a way to minimize or defer. This month, though, I’ve finally had to deal with it, and after a lifetime of reading I’ve finally had to come to some sort of resolution on living purposefully—and practically—with books.
When I pose the question, what do you do when you have too many books? I know instantly what probably went through the minds of some of you. It’s the snarky retort, “You can never have too many books!” Yes, I used to think that too. It’s the answer I told myself during my last move, about five years ago, and the one before that, when I got out of graduate school. On both of those occasions—and, in fact, on the occasion of all of the various moves throughout my adult life—I justified the time, expense and hassle of packing and transporting (or paying to have transported) endless boxes of books on the rationale of, “I’m a historian and a book person, and I love to read. Books are among the few material possessions I care about. Why shouldn’t I have as many as I want?” There was also a psychological avoidance factor. Deciding to move a book collection wholesale, though arduous and expensive, is less painful than trying to figure out what books to get rid of. If you’re a book lover, that’s a major factor.
