I wrote last month about using Bookcrossing and Bookmooch to help me get over two stumbling blocks in getting rid of book clutter: my desire to give the books to someone who will appreciate them, and my need to have a record of that the books I’ve given away, and where they went.
There are other reasons I have trouble downsizing my book collection:
- I like to look at books and reminisce about when I read them.
- Giving away a book I haven’t read yet means admitting that I made a mistake in buying it. (Bookmooch helps with this because I can take comfort in the thought that whoever claims my book must really want it, and once I’ve sent some books off, I can use those points to get a book I’ll actually read).
- I want people to know what I’ve read so that I can impress them with my interesting and cultured taste in books.
- I want people to know what I’ve read so I can bond with people who share my taste.
- I’ve been given a book as a gift, and feel guilty giving it away.
- The book reminds me of someone I used to be. (Examples of who I used to be: A women’s studies major, an aspiring horror writer, a bad poetry writer, someone who cared wanted to learn about art for some reason, a lot less cynical.)
- It’s too big a task to face.
It takes a variety of tactics to address all these issues. Here’s how I’ve used some of the tools:
Librarything: lets you catalogue your book collection
This helped with reason #7: When I first started to downsize my collection, I joined Librarything to help me get a handle on its unmanageable size. It forced me to go through all of my books one by one. As I catalogued, I tagged books with either “keep” or “maybe.” The keep tag was only for books that I planned to read or reread in the near future, books that had immense sentimental attachment, or reference books that I consult often. Maybe was code for “I know I should give this book away, but I’m not ready to part with it yet.” It gave me a chance to hang onto those books for a little while longer, while giving me an easy way to find which titles were expendable at a later date. The few books that I was ready to give away immediately did not get catalogued.
Goodreads: A social book review site that lets you track what you’re reading and what you want to read
I’ve only just discovered Goodreads, but I love that it lets you track your progress in a book (incentive to read more!), see what your friends are reading, and make wishlists. And I love that I can see a list of the books I’ve read (reason #1 and #6), along with the dates I read them and what I thought of them if I’ve chosen to fill in that information. It’s not quite the same as flipping through the pages of a well-loved book, but the visual trigger of the cover art is close.
This also helps with reason #3 and #4 (and is a little more honest than keeping books on my shelves that I haven’t read just to impress people. “My what interesting and cultured taste she has in books she wants to read,” I imagine people will say when they see my “to read” shelf on Goodreads).
I don’t always use all of these tools. Librarything was good for helping me get my collection under control initially, but when I moved I purged everything in the maybe category. Now I just use it to keep track of my physical collection, giving away books as I read them. I just started using Goodreads, and I probably won’t go back to record everything I’ve read up until now, so that’s a missing gap in the record. And shipping books to people on Bookmooch is expensive (especially when you live in Canada), so it’s not the only way I get rid of books. (Other strategies: leaving them in cafes that have bookshelves, foisting them on friends, putting a free box outside my house, donating them.)
If anyone has suggestions for how to tackle reason #5, I’d love to hear them.
