“Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.”
―
Well, I'm going bigger today.
Recently, I've been giving thought again to downsizing my books. Curious, I decided to walk around my house yesterday and count the books that are on the shelves. Surprisingly, it didn't take long. Do you want to know how many there are?
In about 10-15 minutes I was able to quickly tally up 1,359 books. Now, included in that number are 88 books in storage containers that are in transition (I counted those too) - either they're posted on Amazon for selling, or on PaperBackSwap for trading. But even removing those books from the total, we still have over 1200 books taking up space on various shelves in our house.
And that number doesn't include any of the dozen or so I've collected for crafting purposes - like for altering or using for crafting. They are a category unto themselves. Yeah, I probably shouldn't have mentioned those.
Here's the thing. I've been under the impression that we've downsized our book collection significantly from what it was just a few years ago. How many must we have started with to feel like we've whittled our collection down to this number?!?
Too many, for sure.
Now, while I am surprised to find out we still have as many books as we do, considering that we're not tripping over books I'm thinking that's probably not an exceptional number to have - not in a home of book readers. My guess is that the average blog reader is also a reader of books. And, by and large, book readers like to own books. So you, dear reader, might have as many, or more than I do!
Or maybe not. I'm curious if others of you have inventoried or simply done a quick count of your books lately? It would be interesting to know how many books others have - if you're willing to share.
But don't guess. I can tell you right now you won't likely guess right, or even come close. Books can be deceiving in that individually they really don't take up much space. Knowing we'd downsized some, and imagining all (or at least most of) our books neatly contained in bookshelves (nevermind those in the picture above), I figured we had somewhere between 500 - 800. When I asked hubs to guess how many we have (after I had counted them), he confidently guessed 650. I burst into a nervous, almost hysterical laughter knowing I would have to tell him the true number!
When I did he was shocked. And began pointing at shelves telling me he could see quite a few books that could go. I noticed they were my books.
But I guess to be fair... most of the books in this house are my books.
“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” ―
Okay. Well. Hmmm. While I got a little sidetracked counting books, it was enlightening. Let me be clear and say that this isn't a post that should make anyone feel judged (or proud, for that matter) about how many (or even how few) books they own. That's not the point. The point is, I'm downsizing and books are things I want to downsize and I'm finding that knowing how many I have is very effective in helping me take this business seriously. In downsizing I will continue to apply Dana White's container concept and consolidation.
Fortunately, even though our books are spread out through nearly every room of the house, they're more or less consolidated into their different categories. Now I just need to take advantage of that. When I see, say... 4 or 5 books side by side on the subject of grammar, I can probably easily conclude that there are one or two I could do without. Although... my books on grammar are fun ones, so they might not be so easy to discard.
We'll see.
Today, I plan to go through my house looking through every bookcase - this time not counting, but challenging myself to remove something from every shelf. I don't have a number in mind (exactly) of how many books I'd like to cull out of my collection with this exercise, but since I've got 28 pulled out before this little challenge began...
~~~~~
If you're interested, check in tomorrow. My first thought was that some before and after pictures would be fun, but I can see (from what I've already done this morning that that won't be very interesting.
See for yourself:
Ah! I remember I did this very thing once before. Looking for it, I found it was February of 2011! Looking at those pictures I can tell a lot has left the house since then, but it's kind of weird that many books are in the exact same spots they were nine years ago. 😦
Okay, that's it for today. Check in tomorrow to see what I manage to get accomplished today!
See for yourself:
See? Just not that interesting.
While I won't give a before and after of every bookcase, I will take some pictures as I go along - as I imagine some of you might enjoy browsing my bookshelves. I know I'd love browsing yours!
Okay, that's it for today. Check in tomorrow to see what I manage to get accomplished today!
Please be sure to make close-up pix. I always squint to see what people have on their bookshelves! I'm so nosy, I'm probably part-cat.
ReplyDeleteI just hauled two bags of art books to the library, nice stuff which might make it into the collection. At worst it's good for the next book sale.
Are you finding that you can have favorite novels in electronic form, and you can, maybe, part with the print version? I've started that.
I agree! I'll make sure you can read some titles. ;) The idea of many books being electronic now, is helpful. I'm also trying to be happy (enough) with the idea that many of the books I own I can easily check out at the library. And if, the library gets rid of them before I can get around to reading them, it probably won't matter to me much. "Too many books, too little time." ~ Frank Zappa
DeleteAaagh! I can see at least 400 books just from where I sit!! And, like you, I have disposed of many books already.
ReplyDeleteI do have one bookcase (which conveniently has doors on it and which I can't see from here) that I think I can get rid of almost every book in it. Outdated textbooks! (Think I'll pull out any neat illustrations from them first, though.) Even though I know this from FlyLady, it seems it's only now sinking in that I don't need more storage areas, I need less stuff and to declutter the existing storage.
I did notice a stack of Mitford books on one of your before and after bookshelves. Those are some I will not be getting rid of ... perennial favorites.
Yes, I do have a set of Mitford books. I'm not a big book re-reader (and am getting rid of most books as I get them read), but these I plan to re-read and enjoy all over again some day.
DeleteI feel ya, Becki. I am too afraid to count our books. We have 2 six foot tall bookcases full as well as a barristers case full and 2 built in fire side bookcases full and over flowing. Not to mention my craft books and the books by my bed or in bags for teaching classes and then there are some hiding in an unused desk and...
ReplyDelete.well you yet the picture. 90% of them are my hubby's books. I so wish he would cill them. Your after shots of your books shelves are so pretty. I can tell a difference.
Tonight, having perused most shelves a couple of times, I can tell a bit of a difference, but I wasn't as successful as I had hoped. I look forward to sharing tomorrow, though. And moving forward with the challenge to keep whittling away at the books.
DeleteOK - I'm meeting your challenge and just hared off and did a book count and I must say I was pleasantly surprised to come up with *only* 204!! Mind you, I just got rid of two big boxes full of ones we knew we'd never read so I couldn't count those. Keep in mind we live in a small apartment so we don't have room for too many. Of that 204, 91 are in my craft room (oops, I forgot to count three that are beside my chair in the living room). AND we always have a flexible # of library books floating around - at the moment there are at least ten with more waiting for pick up at the library.
ReplyDeleteI thought about you, living in an apartment, when I wrote my post and wondered if you might have a lot more control than I do when it comes to buying books. There is a part of me that thinks I'd love to get back to the day when we borrowed the majority of books we read from the library. I don't know when we became obsessed with owning all these books!
DeleteOh my goodness I am going to count books tomorrow, I donated loads last year and would guess I have less than 60 books but I’ll confirm tomorrow.
ReplyDelete60 sounds so refreshing. :) Will look forward to hearing how many you currently have!
DeleteWell I really never thought to count but I am going to do that tomorrow. I would venture to guess I have as many as you. We have large bookcases in the family room and both kids had a large bookcase in their rooms. I also have a small bookcase in my room. One of my kids took a good many of his with him, but he left a lot. The other one has left hers here, but she doesn't want me to get rid of them. I am guessing I as many as you if not more. I might need to do a bit of purging of books as well. Yikes!
ReplyDeleteWell you beat me. I counted and I have 765 plus about 50 magazines. I counted Bibles too. I just purged a few before Christmas. I might could do a few more, but it would be very hard. Both of my kids still have some books here and I am not talking about children's books but books from high school and college. I have not read most of them, but honestly there are some I would like to. I don't need to bring anymore in as I have plenty to keep me busy with theirs. My son and I actually have similar tastes in reading. I would venture to guess that 150 -200 of those of books for children. I kept many from school and many from the kids early days. I will probably keep those and slowly disseminate to future grandchildren if they are interested.
ReplyDeleteI've inherited some of my grown sons' books, too. Once I happened to be at one son's apartment when he was clearing his shelves. I couldn't help myself. I had to look. And, of course, I brought some home with me.
DeleteI'm not going to count my books as it would take me quite a while so I am sure I have lots. Like you they are in every room too. I must admit I do have a bookcase in my bedroom that is for "keepers" and when that fills up then something has to go. But the rest of the books...some are going to be sold as there are several categories that are no longer relevant....career, self-help, financial...these will be sold and the rest will be gone through and only the really interesting ones will be saved to read. But right now I am doing room by room so your method wouldn't work for me right now. But you go girl!
ReplyDeleteOh, I hear you, Sam! I actually keep bouncing back and forth between focusing on a room and focusing on a category of things. I'm trying to decide whether to tackle the kitchen, my closet, or the furnace room (that's been a storage area for 20 years). If I were to be serious in any of those spaces (like you've been in your closet), I'm thinking those jobs will be monstrous. But they might make for some interesting blog posts. ;^)
DeleteI don't know what we would do without access to a good library. DH reads on average about 5 books a week and if we had to buy them we'd be in book debt up to our eyeballs!
ReplyDeleteThe vast majority of our books, we've come by very cheaply. Friends of the library sales, mostly. And then I discovered PaperBackSwap - which isn't as cheap as FOL sales, but it was fun in its heyday. But I agree... we'd be broke if we bought all these books new. And I'd love to get back to borrowing more books from the library than feeling like I need to own so many books. And I'm not nearly as prolific a reader as I was before I took up crochet, then knitting, then cross stitch again... I won't live long enough to read all these books I've accumulated. Hubs is a fast and and prolific reader. And he's the one with fewer books here. His reads are mostly borrowed, too.
Delete