I took advantage of the fact that DH´s out of town over the weekend today and pulled out all of my pocket books that were slumbering in the closed parts of my living room shelves, spreading them out on the floor and then sorting them by author.
And then... I grabbed one of those reusable shopping totes I have that can carry a whole week´s groceries... and proceeded to fill it.
First thing I noticed- I still had "double" editions around. Books I liked and which I had bought both in their original language and in translation. As I don´t really need two of the same book, I ditched the ones that were in worse shape, keeping the better ones..
Next to go: those books that are nowadays available for free via Kindle or Project Gutenberg. I am reading quite a lot of classics, but those well-thumbed Penguin editions of everything from Dickens to Bronte really don´t have to clog up my shelves any more.
Next on the list: the unfinished projects department. Some books look better in the store than when you try to read them. In the past, I used to keep these and add them to my (mental) reading list, as if they´d be less uninteresting at some nebulous point in the future. Meantimes, they, too, took up plenty of space.
Lastly, some books that had turned out to be trash, or that had disintegrated so badly that keeping them simply wasn´t worth it.
Several hours later (I admit to browsing through the books and getting caught up in some of them) I had not one, but two of those totes full of paper to take to recycling, and enough space liberated in my bookcase that I could put two shelves´ worth of pocket books that used to be out on display into the closed compartments.
The shelves that used to house those will, for the time being, be left empty.
And my living room is one step closer to the minimalist look I want to achieve.
Julia
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