Speaking Volumes

If you've been following our blog since the beginning, you'll know that I shared a few of the books residing on my personal bookshelves in an early post. I promised I'd visit those shelves again. Today is the day. Besides talking about a  book or two, I'll also tie my bountiful library to a book suggested by a blog reader who commented on my December 29^th entry, One Man's Trash.

As you can clearly see from the picture I have lots of books. These are books I can't bear to part with even though I'm a librarian and could probably find half of them in our town library or a library nearby. So why do I hang on to them? Here's where the book Sharon, our reader, suggested comes into play. I interlibrary loaned It's all too much: An easy plan for living a richer life with less stuff, by Peter Walsh. It's a pretty good starting point for anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed with life's accumulation of stuff. The first sentence in the introduction reads “SOMEHING IS AFOOT.” For many of us that may also be something is underfoot, overhead and underneath. The author does a nice job of explaining the psychological and emotional ties we have to our stuff and gives us some great tips to rid our lives of clutter. The chapter that covered books and magazines seemed to be calling out to me. Peter Walsh says “Your Space Dictates How Many Books You Can Have.” He quotes from the Dickens novel David Copperfield, “annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” Walsh goes on to say “When it comes down to it, there is only one simple rule when dealing with books: If they don't fit on your shelves, they shouldn't be in your home.” Now I'm not certain I'm miserable exactly, but my bookshelves do seem a bit too full. I could move some to other book cases in my home except those are a bit full too. Ok, so tell me what to do Mr. Walsh? Carol, he says “If you have shelving space for 100 books and you have 99 books, you don't have a problem (the Dickens lesson). If on the other hand you, you have shelving space for 100 books and you own 102, you have a problem. You should have no more than the number of books that fit comfortably on your bookshelves.” He does not suggest getting more shelving so it's simple. Some books must go.

Actually, before I took the picture of my shelves today, I already packed up 10 books to donate to our Friends book sale. Not enough. So sometime this week, I'll take another look and see what other books I can bear to part with.  I just need to keep repeating, I can borrow this from the library, I can borrow this from the library. And maybe with fewer left, I'll actaully be able to see the titles and  read a few.

These three will stay, however:

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
Bought this one at a flea market because we'll be discussing it at our May 26^th non-fiction book discussion. I will have one less book to interlibrary loan. It's the interwoven story of two men, Hawley Crippen, a murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi. I have read three of Erik Larson books and have enjoyed them all.

Gangster by Lorenzo Carcaterra
Another book sale find. Love, violence, destiny. Fiction about the life of a New York mobster. Carcaterra's novels are fast, action packed reads and I'm saving this one for a day I want to read this type of book.

Lucy & Desi: The Legendary Love Story of Television's Mos