KonMari and my books

[boxofdelights]

While my kitchen and bathrooms were being remodeled, all my stuff was packed into two rooms. The front half of the house wasn't being fixed, but the demolition was going to leave a lot of dust, and all the demolishers and remodelers needed to carry big objects through the house, so I packed my stuff away and taped it off.

Every time I walked into my empty house, I said, what am I going to do with all this space? But as soon as I started unpacking it flipped into, where am I going to put all this stuff?

It seems like good time to try tidying up with Mari Kondo. I'm not going to put all my books in a mountain though. That's the first step -- to get a sense of how much you have -- I can't do it.

I like the idea of taking each book in my hands and judging whether it sparks joy, though. And if it doesn't, releasing it to spark joy somewhere else. I think I'll try that.

I marked all my books "unread" on Librarything. As I go through, I'll switch the ones I have read to "read", so at the end I will be able to see what I own and haven't read. Maybe I will even write a sentence about each of them as I go.

Comments

[kore]

I marked all my books "unread" on Librarything. As I go through, I'll switch the ones I have read to "read", so at the end I will be able to see what I own and haven't read. Maybe I will even write a sentence about each of them as I go.

Ooh, good idea.

I did handle each and every one of my books as I entered them into Librarything, but that project was over a long time ago, except for entering some new hard copy purchases now and then. Nearly everything is now all ebooks and I struggle with how to catalogue it.

(If I put all my books in a mountain, it would have to be outside my apartment, probably in a parking lot!)

[corvidology]

The very idea of putting all my books in a pile is making me feel nauseous. Good for you though! :D

[julian]

IME, the "write a wee bit about each one" can become a bogging down thing, but otoh, it'd be interesting to read along, or something.

[boxofdelights]

It could become a bogging down thing. But I'll post them, and we'll see how far I get.

[boxofdelights]

If you have enough books, they'll start defying the laws of physics.

[siderea]

Technically, if you have enough books, the laws of physics start being relativistic, not classical.

[mrissa]

I think for me one of the things is--I have no time constraint. I am not trying to move to a smaller place in the next year or two. I am not trying to redo my library and find out how many bookshelves I really need. (LBR I need all of them, any books I clear out will be replaced by more books, that is the purpose for me of clearing books out.)

So for me, considering each book, whether I might want to reread it, whether rereading it makes me think well of it, is worth the time, whereas a mountain would not be.

It probably matters that I do not share the apparently nigh-ubiquitous experience of having an insurmountable TBR pile in physical form in my house. I'm not very good at spending money on myself; I could get through my current TBR fairly easily depending on how many review copies I get in the mail in the next short bit. I have literally run out of TBR. I'm happy to get rid of books I don't want to reread in hopes that the used bookstore will have other books I might want to read. That's a good trade for me. But only that trade, not books I will want to reread after all for books I only might want to read.

[julian]

Cool. V. glad to read the first one.

[sasha_feather]

What a nice idea :D

[notasupervillain]

I don't have the sense that stuff is a good or bad thing on its own - having a lot of books isn't bad if you collect books. So I'm less fussed about that. But I do think the idea that your possessions should spark joy is a good idea.