As some of you may know, I have friends who helped me last spring to get rid of roomsful of broken furniture, get rid of glass in my bedroom, fix the holes in the wall from my son. We even painted one of the rooms that is going to be a study. (It's orange.) I continued over the summer to fix the walls and painted the trim and the door to the carport, and found some inexpensive curtains to hang so I have some privacy in my bedroom, where the window is no longer boarded up.
So what is my next project?
I am giving away books.
I have more books than I've ever cared to count. I reread books often, both classics and light reading. I have some books I read every year or two, like Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice. Or Anne of Green Gables. Others I read occasionally, and usually in binges - Trollope, Dickens, other Victorians. George Eliot somewhere in between.
I also reread Elizabeth Peters and other simply entertaining books.
But I read authors. When I decided to read the British mystery writers of the 1920's, I bought and read lots of Marjorie Allingham, Cyril Hare, Ngaio Marsh and so on. I don't think I ever reread them. I do reread Josephine Tey and Dorothy Sayres. But I have stacks of the others I am giving away. I'm getting rid of my Martha Grimes and Margaret Truman and Amanda Cross. I intend to go through my psychology books as well once I pare out the fiction.
Now, I have had many of my books since the 1970's and 80's. Not long ago I reread Little Dorritt, and the glue was so old and dried up that it is now in eight sections. All the pages are still there at least. With several of the Palliser novels, pages at the beginning and end are gone. This is also true of some of the lighter stuff.
I had the thought some weeks ago that it might be worth buying a Kindle or Nook or something like that so I don't have to replace old books. I'm 63. I should be making my life simpler and lighter.
Two weeks ago I went to Bookman's, the local second-hand book store hauling five bags of books - Trader Joe bags, Netroots Nation totes, even a couple of plastic grocery bags. They took about a dozen books (including my old Modern Greek-English Dictionary). So there I was still with five bags of books, and I had no idea what to do with them.
I have found several places that take book donations. I took a bag to a hospital, and they said they would get them to the Cancer Center, where chemo patients can take them. Several bags went to the local thrift shop, and a couple directly to the Cancer Center. The University hospital takes children's books, and another local hospital takes adult book donations.
I don't suppose anyone would want a 1975 Fodor's guide to England. There are some other white elephant items that will just go in the trash, I suppose.
But the feeling of giving away books that are simply cluttering my space is surprising. I feel energetic, rather like the cooler air we are finally getting here in Arizona. It is a kind of awakening.
I do not plan to stop buying new books. I like books, I like the feel of holding a book, I like fanning through pages to find what I am looking for. I have childhood memories of the texture of the page of a book and where I was when I read it. But I do plan to get rid of those that just take up space, and not to replace broken books. Eventually I probably will get an electronic reader to keep a library of books that need replacing.
Maybe I'll even be able to use my linen closet for linens.