Much of yesterday and today, I've been down in the basement sorting out my books, hoping to get a better idea of which ones I want to keep, and which ones are headed to the flea market or charity. This is actually what I have left from the move, because I sold a large number of them at a yard sale last year, and then hauled off several boxes to Goodwill right before we moved. Back a few years ago, I sold several hundred paperbacks to a guy who was starting up a used bookstore. Of course, I still buy books, too, so when I sell books I have a tendency to replace them with new titles. What I currently have is probably the "smallest" my collection has been in many years. But, I need to weed out even more, and hope to end up with half of what I have.
I've been separating the books into different piles throughout the basement. I have stacks of Weight Watchers cookbooks, plus lots of other cookbooks from Southern Living, Gooseberry Patch, Cooking Light, and of course all of Rachel Ray's books. Then I have piles of magazines I've saved over the years, most of them WW and other dieting/health related titles. Another section of books and magazines would be my small reference library on getting pregnant, being pregnant, and childbirth. Mind you, when I married James I was turning 40 that year, but we still crossed our fingers. I actually thought we might get pregnant, as we started trying right away. So of course I bought up every book I could get my hands on about fertility and pregnancy. I think I can safely get rid of those books now, since it's been 3 1/2 years of trying.
I have a half ton of other reference books on every subject from gardening to dieting to all kinds of crafts- candlemaking, beadwork, pottery, painting, needlework. My last segregated pile are all my books of fiction, both paperback and hardback. I have everything Stephen King and Ann Rule have ever published, I have most of Bertrice Small's books, and just about everything in between. My goal is to go through each and every book now that they are in easier to manage categories. I know some that I've already read by favorite authors (mentioned above) I will keep because they are important to me personally. Others I will set aside because I have intentions of reading them soon. And still others I will look at and think, why did I ever buy that (I have books on beekeeping and raising alpacas and owning rental property, just to name a few!!!)- I won't feel too much pain in parting with these gems. James laughs at me because I will drag them to a flea market and try to sell them for fifty-cents each, instead of just hauling the lot of them down to Goodwill. It's just something about the thrill of that twenty bucks in my hand at the end of the day!! (photo of just half of the big pile)
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