Letting Go of Books

How many books does anybody need? I woke up this morning thinking about books. Yesterday, I started out with about 600 books - I got rid of a several boxes of the dang things - I still have at least 400. I'm going to get ruthless and try and get down to 100 - books that I think I need.


What you see here is a 22 volume edition of the Practical Handyman Encyclopedia. Yep, you are right, I have never been accused of either one, being practical or being a handyman. Do you remember the Jethro Tull Song "Locomotive Breath"? Well there is a verse in that song that says that the individual "Locomotive Breath", "has his hands on Gideon's Bible, opened at page one". That's the way I feel I feel too, I would hate for my lifeless body to be found dead - with my eyes open ....still looking at volume one - page one of the Practical Handyman Encyclopedia.


Here's another classic, from 1993 "The Death of Superman". Now the problem here is not that I have a "comic book", the problem is that I have 103 of them....all the same issue. This was my idea of a get rich quick scheme. Since these were a "limited edition" and 1993 to 2008 - that's 15 years - so what are these babies worth? Based on what I see on ebay, I might be able to recover my initial purchase price. The term "limited edition" must mean that they printed only 100 copies for every living American. Let me know soon if you need one. Otherwise, these are heading for ebay. Not one of my better financial investments for sure.

Although this may seem like a good start, what is called for here is a more radical approach to book sorting. Rather, than thinking about which books to "pitch", I need to focus on what books to save. Here are my rules for saving books. I will keep a book if:

1. It is the family Bible. This will help people think I am not a heathen.
2. It is a book that is autographed by a person I respect.
3. I am keeping my Cub & Boy Scout books and that, is that!
4. I am keeping my Kinky Friedman books - I can't help it.
5. I guess I will keep my Cost Management Reference Books.

The rest of these have got to go! Wow, this is actually working. I am down to less than 200. I'm going to stop for now on this blog....and try and finish us on this debooking project.

All the best,

mike