Last night, Josh asked me "How do you decide which books to keep out of all the books you read?" I don't have a good answer for that question. I am now finished opening up and unpacking boxes of books, but I still have several tote bags full and (again) no shelf space. A couple of years ago, I weeded out my books and I keep doing that, getting rid of books I will never read again, galleys I thought I would have time to read, books I can't remember bringing home. But, it is an enormous task to go through all of them and decide what to give away.
One of the reasons I have a hard time getting rid of books is that I keep thinking I will have time to read them one day. Case in point, two books I just pulled off my shelf as I was unpacking, Case Histories by Kate Atkinson and Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham. I started reading Case Histories when I first got it and then got distracted by another book. Now that her new novel, One Good Turn, is coming out, I want to read this one so I can get a basis for all of the characters.
I was a big fan of Michael Cunningham's The Hours. My senior thesis in college was on Virginia Woolf and I loved the idea that he was going to follow an interwoven story involving Woolf and her novel Mrs. Dalloway and characters in two different eras. I loved it and I was intrigued by the idea of this book as well, I just didn't get to it last summer.
It is such a nice day that I am now going to sit in my backyard and read. Sunday afternoons should be time to recuperate and slack off just a little. Hope all your Sundays are lazy as well.
1 comment:
Clearly, Josh must learn the real answer to his question is simply that you don't ever get rid of books with the exception of giving them to other people to read.
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