Thursday, October 11, 2012

 

low-hanging fruit


The big book-sorting project has barely begun and already I discover that I own multiple copies of my favorite books, shelved in different places.  A few copies of The Country of the Pointed Firs.  Many copies of Patrick Leigh Fermor's travel books, in hardcover and softcover, both upstairs and down.  I Capture the Castle in hardcover and softcover.  Several fine press editions of Shakespeare's Sonnets, none of which are frankly that attractive, and besides, I have the Sonnets in other formats.  Go they must!  This is the easy part of deciding what to cull.  I can get rid of one copy, because I have another copy right here!

I really thought I had rooted all these duplicates out when we moved here, and then again when I closed my bookshop.  But no, apparently not.  To the point:  in the living room, shelved in two different places in the very same bookcase, mind you not a large bookcase, two copies of The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac

Comments:
I am doing it too, Sarah, so I sympathize. I am going to have to move again next spring, I suspect to a smaller apartment as rents are going up. It is very difficult,but some of these books I have read several times - I have absorbed them. Some of the others, I will never read. So, on with the job, and I will save the most precious. Good luck. Kathleen
 
Kathleen, I pulled five cartons of books out of the book room over the weekend. Around twenty-five books fit in each carton. So, it's going well thus far but I haven't had to make many tough decisions (yet).

I myself have lived in many small apartments over the years. And now that Ryan and I (and Hodge) have a house with much more living space than we've ever had before, I don't want to silt it up! Books gather everywhere, in windrows, don't they...
 
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