Ah, spring! Time for tulips, green grass, baby calves frolicking in the fields, and spring cleaning! My husband and I have been in the process of downsizing for a while now (or “rightsizing” as we Baby Boomers prefer), so spring cleaning is sort of an ongoing thing at our house. I’ve had no trouble at all sorting through clothes, linens, dishes, pots and pans, and even jewelry. So many items have found new homes or been relegated to the recycle bins. But there’s one problem. Our house is chock full of books, and I can’t seem to let them go.
My husband and I once fantasized about selling everything we own and buying a sailboat to sail around the world. We figured we could generate enough income via the internet to keep the galley stocked, and we could stay in touch with friends and family via e-mail. Only one thing—well, besides the fact that neither of us knew how to sail—was stopping us. What would we do with all our books?
It’s not that we never give a book away, sell a book at a garage sale, or take a stack of books to a used bookstore. We just don’t seem to have done any of those things frequently enough. Hardbacks, paperbacks, pocket-sized volumes and coffee table tomes…our house is full of books.
Even with all the moves over the years, we both still have textbooks from college courses we took in the late sixties. I saved valuable texts like the Norton Anthology of English Literature and the Harbrace College Handbook. He, on the other hand, has texts titled (I’m not making this up) Engineering Economy, Applied Regression Analysis, and Principles of Operations Research with Application to Managerial Decisions, copyright 1969. Now, excuse me, but William Blake will always be William Blake and the tiger burns just as brightly “in the forests of the night” in 2015 as he did in 1967. However, any manager needing advice based on what was known about systems operations in 1969 is probably managing a push broom—if that!
In addition to nonfiction titles and novels, we have a complete library of children’s books. Now I’m reading Dr. Seuss favorites like Hop on Pop, Mr. Brown is Out of Town and The Foot Book to a second generation. I suppose I could forgo the set of 1975 Encyclopedia Britannica Junior (minus Vol. 16, which one of my sons left at school), but I couldn’t abandon Tuggy the Tugboat for the most luxurious sailboat made!
We also have travel guides to every place we’ve ever been or dreamed of going. Those would come in handy on the sailboat, but where would we put them? At least I could toss overboard those for inland locations, like Beijing: An Illustrated Guide. We would need one whole foot locker to hold those classics we plan to read some day, including the Complete Works of William Shakespeare and the Complete Novels of Jane Austen, and another for the books we bought but haven’t read yet. We’d need all the books we’ve saved from foreign languages we’ve taken so we could look up how to ask directions to the post office in every port, and I’d need my full supply of cookbooks in the galley, with titles spanning trends from fondu to gluten-free.
You may be wondering why we don’t just read books on an electronic reader like a Kindle or Nook. Well, we do. But somehow that hasn’t replaced the joy of holding a book in hand and turning the pages one by one.
Although we do own a book titled Sailing for Dummies, I doubt we’ll opt for the sailing fantasy. Far more likely is that we’ll move to a smaller house with a lot less stuff—except for the books stacked floor to ceiling in every room!
I LOVE this Nancy. I SO identify!! In fact I just sent this article to many of the leaders I’ve invested in about why reading is SO important. Know you’ll love it too Nancy.
http://michaelhyatt.com/science-readers-leaders.html?utm_source=Michael+Hyatt+Newsletter&utm_campaign=acea107b03-rssdaily2&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d1fa5823d7-acea107b03-250394929
Thanks, Lea Ann. Michael Hyatt is one of my favorites!
Boy, can I relate to this one!! I think my books are reproducing…need to keep those authors separated!!
Ralph not only has texts with similar names as Jim but term papers and notes…from the day of the slide rule!!
Love this one, Jimmie
I totally understand…he may need to look something up some day! 🙂
Nancy,
Dredged up one of those “what if” moments in my life with the sailing theme. When I mustered out of the Navy, I was in Naples, and chose to stay in Europe for a short while. A good Italian friend had been on the Grand Prix circuit in his youth and invested his winnings well. He owned a 150 foot 3 masted sailboat and a bar on the Mergellina among other assets. He offered a buddy of mine and me the opportunity to run the bar for a year and then sell everything and take the sailboat to Australia. I thought long and hard, but in the end realized I had interrupted my education long enough, what with the Navy and Hawaii with Frank Hall. I don’t really have any regrets in life for things I have done, but things I chose not to do sometimes revisit me at odd times, and I get to wonder, “what if.” Still no regrets; life has been and continues to be an adventure! Thanks for the memory.
All best,
Ben Ross
You’re so welcome. Good to hear about your navigational experiences and aspirations. It’s not too late!
Yes. Books. I love them! And we, too, have them in every room in the house. They are like old friends – hard to pass on to someone else because they simply belong with us. If you ever find a way to minimize your books, let me know your secret – it would make Tom happy if I could minimize what we have!
I think moving to smaller digs may just do it, Sues. Since I posted this I’ve been able to carry armloads to the garage for a future sale!
I beg your pardon. You never know when I might need to brush up on measuring inter-arrival times of patrons lining up for service at one or more bank teller windows – a classic Queing Theory problem. 🙂
OK, dear. But I’d help you look it up on the internet! 🙂
Nancy,I can so identify! Rather than thinning the archives of volumes collected since the 60’s, we keep building more bookshelves. We’ve expanded shelving to just shy of the ceiling in two rooms and added corner nooks and wall spanning shelving in another two rooms. I know it’s time to stop, but the smell of the books and their caress in the hand is irresistible..And then there’s our collected thoughts … years of penned pages in journals, papers, notes, and our own titles. I cannot dismiss the ever-growing number of Bibles and Bible, commentaries, dictionaries and such. The internet cannot complete nor a palm device replace my ready friends stacked about waiting to entertain, inform and inspire.. Clearly, to love language, and all that it brings to our lives, compels us to hang-on to the scribes, poets, and authors of every stripe who bring their bigger than life tales and insights to us volume upon volume.. Voracious readers share a love affair with thinkers, dreamers,, teachers:those skilled in articulating the human condition and the spirit realm beyond.. I for one am smitten to the core.
Thanks for understand, Charlie! Books really are like trusted, old friends!
Loved this post Nancy! You can never have enough books!!! We could open the Brummett/Abel Library. What do you say???!!!
I think it would be well used…especially if we had Jim and Jeff teaching “techy” classes on the side!
Yup.
‘Nuff said!
Bless you, Nancy, and good luck with the books. 16 years ago we downsized from the big house on the Mesa, and we donated, gave away and sold hundreds of books. The ones we couldn’t part with, especially Jim’s leather-bound or first edition language books, are safely packed away…in space we need for other things. We had an entire wall of bookshelves built for the little house, yet we still have too many books. Our deal now is to keep them, love them, give them away as friends ask for good books…and, for all new books that want to come into our lives, the same number must go into other lives (immediately), to Goodwill, the ARC or through Friends of the Library. 😉
Great “policy” Marylin. I’ve used the one in, one out, rule for years with clothing. Shall apply it to books forthwith! 🙂
smiled throughout
so relate
so true
so LOVE books
cannot imagine life without them
at sea or on land!
Agreed, Alice. Just HAVE to get to the point where I have fewer!
I so agree. Nothing will ever replace a “paper” book…..the way it feels in your hands, and like Nancy says, “turning pages one at a time.” A real paper and bound book has become something of a work of art, now that we have electronic readers. Additionally, books add warmth to any room that they are in. What feels cozier than a library?
So it appears that hopefully there are enough of us out there clamoring to hang onto paper books, and not wanting to totally transition over to electronic readers. There’s got to be space for both kinds in our world!
Couldn’t agree more, Lisa. I can read one or two books on my Kindle, then I have to have a “real” book in hand again. Both are good!
I agree, Nancy…”Both are good”. I often have the same book in hand as well as on my tablet! The tablet is a must if I continue my reading in bed so my “better half” can fall asleep without a light on. It is not unusual to find me switching from one to the other as circumstance dictates. I, too, have numerous books needing new homes! Good luck to you!