Opinions Needed: Book De-Cluttering
Feb. 1st, 2015 06:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfold_xI recently read Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I've been searching for a while for a way to improve my habitat, so that my space is relaxing, joyful and pleasant. Kondo seems to get exactly that concept, and her position on organizing is forget finding new and more elaborate ways to store--radically pare down what you have, so that it is much easier to store in your space.
I think that she's right. I'm surrounded by entirely too much stuff (a problem I've been failing to deal with for a while now). I started with clothes, as she recommends (pictures and details to come), and that was difficult but not impossible, and I saw a lot of benefits (oh my goodness, I want to tell you about my sock drawer!).
The next category she recommends you organize (yes, there's an order of categories, and then orders within categories) is books. I've got a lot of books and magazines; I'm a news junkie and one of my hobbies is politics and sociology. There's also the obvious cross-over with fannish stuff: book series, tie-ins for movies and television series, comics and graphic novels, and fanzines. I'm not going to even try to deal with fannishly produced books and manga while working the 'books' category; for me, I think they fall mostly in the hobbies category, which would normally be dealt with later in the process.
Even though I can make the space, I don't want to keep everything. My free time is a precious commodity, and I think I should be realistic about what I'd be likely to re-read (or read for the first time). But even with that knowledge, it's hard to cut down what I have, and I'd appreciate feedback/ideas. What general level should I be using to cut down to? Does it matter that reading so closely aligns with my other hobbies/interests?
My books fall roughly into the following categories:
* Textbooks: law, politics, psychology, history, French. I'm thinking toss the law books, as they're not useful for re-study (because of the way law is taught, wherein cases are presented for discussion rather than presentation of rules/principles). For a practitioner, they're useless. Hornbooks and nutshells are more useful, but I've tossed those as they've aged (because the ones I was using were becoming OBE). I'm also inclined to toss the politics textbooks, as they're all from the mid-nineties and none of them are classics in the field (someone's incorrect guess about what they post-cold war world would look like isn't really worth saving, right?). The history books aren't particularly good either, and I think I can find anything I need on the Internet. The French I'm keeping because I have used them a few times since graduating, and I plan to use them again to brush up before any travels to French-speaking countries. The psychology are a hard spot: what if I want to look up information on child development, abnormal psych, etc, for a fanfic? I haven't really used them post-undergrad, but I can't shake the feeling that I might.
* Professional materials: law journals, books/pamphlets/briefs published as a part of prior jobs, papers published by others in my specialty. The law journals... I'm not sure why I saved them, except that I guess when I finished school that's what I thought lawyers did. Some of the recent ones I might find an article or two of interest in, but the others... If I haven't read them now, I'm not going to pick them up in my free time now. And if I really need an article from a journal from fifteen years ago, I've got my Westlaw account. Briefs, articles, and other materials I authored however... I think those need to be archived some where. Most of it I'm not going to use as a writing sample, but I do want copies of things that I wrote, and for me most of that doesn't live digitally. There's also one very big professional topic that I worked intensely on for years where, even though I don't know if I'll ever write that journal article I was planning, I think I need all the materials that I have from that issue because it's a huge career thing that may become relevant in my life again at some point (either to teach or write about, or just to remember), though I think I should move it off of the book shelves and into storage boxes.
* Sociology and political philosophy. I'm perpetually interested in what makes human societies (especially the US) function. I'm constantly reading new texts and, even though I rarely re-read books, I sometimes go back to extract factoids or compare with something new I'm reading. Keep 'em all?
* Political biography. Keep everything that wasn't disappointing, and anything I haven't read yet that still looks interesting (I think I have a high chance of picking any one of these up as a random 'oooh, let's start a new book' choice).
* Religious: Bible studies, apologetics, popular topics. Keep apologetics and popular topics; like sociology and political philosophy, I think I use them enough as reference that they're still good to keep around. Toss Bible studies (they should be like a course--you take it once, then it's done). Cull the C.S. Lewis for duplicates, and keep only the best copy of a given work.
* Cookbooks. So many gifts I don't use! Toss everything but the three I do use, as I can find almost anything I need on the Internet.
* Mainstream popular novels (eg, spy novels, drama, chick lit). OMG TOSS THEM. None of these are passions, and they're so easy to buy another of if I need them, for some unforseen reason. Keeping these are like keeping wrappers from my candy bars. I feel a little twinge getting rid of my Tom Clancy novels--when I was in school, he was one of my favorites; I read his whole back catalogue, and eagerly anticipated anything in the Jack Ryan/John Clark universe. But I haven't re-read them in over a decade, and it's not as though I wouldn't be able to find replacement copies if I had a burning need. I also feel just a little off about tossing my Stephen Fry novels but, like Clancy, if I'm jonsing to re-read, it shouldn't be an issue to find them again.
* Science fiction and fantasy novels. Keep the ones I love, but get good copies. For example, why are my half of my Harry Potters beat-up paperbacks with cracked spines? Keep the ones I haven't read yet but feel I am likely to read, regardless of the condition. Donate books I read and enjoyed but won't read again (or didn't read and don't particularly feel likely to); if it's not a passion, what do I need the copy for?
* Random classics. Sure, I enjoyed these books, but... who needs single Shakespearean play lying around? If Shakespeare or Austen were passions, then sure, I should get good copies of all their works and keep them, but the honest truth is there's a good reason why I wasn't an English major. Same goes for my books of Keats and Frost poetry. I read and enjoyed, but I don't go out on beautiful summer afternoons to re-read them under a tree in the dappled sunlight. I'm not a poetry buff, and keeping them around doesn't make me smarter or more sophisticated.
* Art, museum, coffee table. Mostly souvenirs from travel or gifts. The photos are generally lovely, but I don't display them as coffee table books. Really hard to part with, though, as I remember how much they cost, or the friends who gave them to me.
* Reference. Most of these are travel books, which I would purge except they also feel sort of like souvenirs? I also have some books on purchasing a home that I'd like to keep until such time as I actually do that (!) and a few books on nutrition that I think might be helpful in the future. And that copy of the Army handbook on nuclear, biological and radiological threats just seems like the sort of thing it would be bad luck to throw away.
* Magazines. I don't keep news magazines any more (I used to have soooo maaaaany). Right now, my only non-fannish magazines are my decades-old issues of Victoria magazine. At one time, this was the aesthetic to which I aspired. I couldn't get rid of them when I tossed the news magazines because I was still thinking about all the recipes, photos, etc. Theoretically, I could still use them as design inspiration, but I think the look is slightly more fussy than what would please me today.
* Fannish tie-in materials. Oh Lord, so many books in this category. I think I'm going to treat this as a separate, hobby category and do them when we get to the hobbies area. *head in hands*
I think that she's right. I'm surrounded by entirely too much stuff (a problem I've been failing to deal with for a while now). I started with clothes, as she recommends (pictures and details to come), and that was difficult but not impossible, and I saw a lot of benefits (oh my goodness, I want to tell you about my sock drawer!).
The next category she recommends you organize (yes, there's an order of categories, and then orders within categories) is books. I've got a lot of books and magazines; I'm a news junkie and one of my hobbies is politics and sociology. There's also the obvious cross-over with fannish stuff: book series, tie-ins for movies and television series, comics and graphic novels, and fanzines. I'm not going to even try to deal with fannishly produced books and manga while working the 'books' category; for me, I think they fall mostly in the hobbies category, which would normally be dealt with later in the process.
Even though I can make the space, I don't want to keep everything. My free time is a precious commodity, and I think I should be realistic about what I'd be likely to re-read (or read for the first time). But even with that knowledge, it's hard to cut down what I have, and I'd appreciate feedback/ideas. What general level should I be using to cut down to? Does it matter that reading so closely aligns with my other hobbies/interests?
My books fall roughly into the following categories:
* Textbooks: law, politics, psychology, history, French. I'm thinking toss the law books, as they're not useful for re-study (because of the way law is taught, wherein cases are presented for discussion rather than presentation of rules/principles). For a practitioner, they're useless. Hornbooks and nutshells are more useful, but I've tossed those as they've aged (because the ones I was using were becoming OBE). I'm also inclined to toss the politics textbooks, as they're all from the mid-nineties and none of them are classics in the field (someone's incorrect guess about what they post-cold war world would look like isn't really worth saving, right?). The history books aren't particularly good either, and I think I can find anything I need on the Internet. The French I'm keeping because I have used them a few times since graduating, and I plan to use them again to brush up before any travels to French-speaking countries. The psychology are a hard spot: what if I want to look up information on child development, abnormal psych, etc, for a fanfic? I haven't really used them post-undergrad, but I can't shake the feeling that I might.
* Professional materials: law journals, books/pamphlets/briefs published as a part of prior jobs, papers published by others in my specialty. The law journals... I'm not sure why I saved them, except that I guess when I finished school that's what I thought lawyers did. Some of the recent ones I might find an article or two of interest in, but the others... If I haven't read them now, I'm not going to pick them up in my free time now. And if I really need an article from a journal from fifteen years ago, I've got my Westlaw account. Briefs, articles, and other materials I authored however... I think those need to be archived some where. Most of it I'm not going to use as a writing sample, but I do want copies of things that I wrote, and for me most of that doesn't live digitally. There's also one very big professional topic that I worked intensely on for years where, even though I don't know if I'll ever write that journal article I was planning, I think I need all the materials that I have from that issue because it's a huge career thing that may become relevant in my life again at some point (either to teach or write about, or just to remember), though I think I should move it off of the book shelves and into storage boxes.
* Sociology and political philosophy. I'm perpetually interested in what makes human societies (especially the US) function. I'm constantly reading new texts and, even though I rarely re-read books, I sometimes go back to extract factoids or compare with something new I'm reading. Keep 'em all?
* Political biography. Keep everything that wasn't disappointing, and anything I haven't read yet that still looks interesting (I think I have a high chance of picking any one of these up as a random 'oooh, let's start a new book' choice).
* Religious: Bible studies, apologetics, popular topics. Keep apologetics and popular topics; like sociology and political philosophy, I think I use them enough as reference that they're still good to keep around. Toss Bible studies (they should be like a course--you take it once, then it's done). Cull the C.S. Lewis for duplicates, and keep only the best copy of a given work.
* Cookbooks. So many gifts I don't use! Toss everything but the three I do use, as I can find almost anything I need on the Internet.
* Mainstream popular novels (eg, spy novels, drama, chick lit). OMG TOSS THEM. None of these are passions, and they're so easy to buy another of if I need them, for some unforseen reason. Keeping these are like keeping wrappers from my candy bars. I feel a little twinge getting rid of my Tom Clancy novels--when I was in school, he was one of my favorites; I read his whole back catalogue, and eagerly anticipated anything in the Jack Ryan/John Clark universe. But I haven't re-read them in over a decade, and it's not as though I wouldn't be able to find replacement copies if I had a burning need. I also feel just a little off about tossing my Stephen Fry novels but, like Clancy, if I'm jonsing to re-read, it shouldn't be an issue to find them again.
* Science fiction and fantasy novels. Keep the ones I love, but get good copies. For example, why are my half of my Harry Potters beat-up paperbacks with cracked spines? Keep the ones I haven't read yet but feel I am likely to read, regardless of the condition. Donate books I read and enjoyed but won't read again (or didn't read and don't particularly feel likely to); if it's not a passion, what do I need the copy for?
* Random classics. Sure, I enjoyed these books, but... who needs single Shakespearean play lying around? If Shakespeare or Austen were passions, then sure, I should get good copies of all their works and keep them, but the honest truth is there's a good reason why I wasn't an English major. Same goes for my books of Keats and Frost poetry. I read and enjoyed, but I don't go out on beautiful summer afternoons to re-read them under a tree in the dappled sunlight. I'm not a poetry buff, and keeping them around doesn't make me smarter or more sophisticated.
* Art, museum, coffee table. Mostly souvenirs from travel or gifts. The photos are generally lovely, but I don't display them as coffee table books. Really hard to part with, though, as I remember how much they cost, or the friends who gave them to me.
* Reference. Most of these are travel books, which I would purge except they also feel sort of like souvenirs? I also have some books on purchasing a home that I'd like to keep until such time as I actually do that (!) and a few books on nutrition that I think might be helpful in the future. And that copy of the Army handbook on nuclear, biological and radiological threats just seems like the sort of thing it would be bad luck to throw away.
* Magazines. I don't keep news magazines any more (I used to have soooo maaaaany). Right now, my only non-fannish magazines are my decades-old issues of Victoria magazine. At one time, this was the aesthetic to which I aspired. I couldn't get rid of them when I tossed the news magazines because I was still thinking about all the recipes, photos, etc. Theoretically, I could still use them as design inspiration, but I think the look is slightly more fussy than what would please me today.
* Fannish tie-in materials. Oh Lord, so many books in this category. I think I'm going to treat this as a separate, hobby category and do them when we get to the hobbies area. *head in hands*
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no subject
Date: 2015-02-02 01:04 am (UTC)I'll have to check out that book you mentioned.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-02 01:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-02 02:07 am (UTC)Toss the psychology books. Any information you are likely to need at some point is probably available on the internet.
If you legit use the sociology and political psychology books as references, keep.
As for the coffee table ones, have you tried looking up ways to display them on pinterest or home decor sites? There are a lot of nifty ideas out there, and you might find something that makes you happier to keep them?
Travel books date pretty quickly, I think, so I would toss them. Nutrition stuff also tends to date pretty quickly, because mostly people make up ideas and have no fucking clue what they're talking about.
I would also toss the magazines. If you want inspiration for whatever aesthetic, go make a board on pinterest, and save the space in your home.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-02 02:12 am (UTC)No, I haven't. I'll give that a try, thanks!
no subject
Date: 2015-02-02 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-02 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-02 04:39 am (UTC)Keep the French textbooks, toss pretty much everything else you've thought about getting rid of, especially things you think you "might need someday" but haven't touched since college. Less is more!
no subject
Date: 2015-02-16 06:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-16 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-02 08:11 am (UTC)Mainstream popular novels [...] Keeping these are like keeping wrappers from my candy bars
... this is a really good way of putting it, huh! I never thought about it this way, but that's true. If you're never going to reread them and you can get another quite easily, then who cares?
no subject
Date: 2015-02-16 06:09 am (UTC)And yet still appreciated! It's hard, even after I've decided to get rid of something, to actually do it (today I patted myself on the back because I actually moved the legal journals from their stack near the door to the actual outside trash bin!).
no subject
Date: 2015-02-02 10:36 am (UTC)I am pretty good at de-cluttering everything else in my life (multiple intercontinental moves will do that) but THE BOOKS. I have boxes in my parents' basement because I can't stand to get rid of them. And I don't feel too bad about taking up the space because look, my dad has copies of theology journals from the mid-80s down there. In addition to taking over the room that used to be my bedroom for a library extension after my mother got worried about the floor in his office collapsing under the weight of his books (not an unfounded fear).
So, perspective! If you're not compromising the structural integrity of your house you're doing pretty well!
BUT OKAY, thoughts. I've replaced a lot of reference type books, published dissertations, etc. with the ebook versions which helps a lot (bonus: searchable!). Anything you actually refer to regularly, though, I'd keep--being able to keep the book open next to you while you're writing/whatever is really pretty nice. Ditto for books you love--I have some I keep for comfort-reading just because. Otherwise, if you haven't looked at something in [time period--idk, a year?] and it doesn't serve a clear future purpose (like those house books, or, clearly, that Army handbook) maybe it doesn't need to live in your house.
GOOD LUCK!
no subject
Date: 2015-02-16 06:31 am (UTC)Thank you for that unique perspective ;)
no subject
Date: 2015-02-08 02:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-16 06:18 am (UTC)(Your book collection sounds beautiful...) NO MUST STAY STRONG