Weeding the shelves

As with most people in the book profession I tend to accumulate books. Some I collect with a view towards permanence, for example, I have a small collection of children’s books, first editions, quilting books etc. and these types of books I’ll never part with. I also have a large number of books for casual reading – which have made unmanageable by pursuing other people’s reading blogs. Quite a few blogs have a mailbox Monday, waiting on Wednesday day type of feature wherein they are looking forward to new books and thus adding to my reading piles. However, I’ve come to the realization that I have more books than I'll ever get to and I really need to weed some of my books so I’ve set myself a challenge. So I’m going to do a similar type of thing but call it weeding the shelves. Hopefully once a week I’ll report on what I’ve cleared from my shelves and perhaps even write a book review or two. My initial goal is to work with the 35 books that have wandered into my living room. I’ve decided that I must read 15 of them by the end of Sept. If I haven’t read 15 then I must get rid of an equivalent number to make it 15. I must read the remainder of the books by the end of December or get rid of the rest of the pile. Then it is onwards and upwards – I’ll continue winnowing by setting deadlines and to help with the reading part I’m not going to the public library. So far I’ve finished one so I better pick up the pace!