Friday, May 24, 2019

Books, Glorious Books

According to my mother, on my first birthday, when I was fed rice for the first time, as part of that ceremony, a mat was spread on the floor with several different object placed on it and I was placed on the mat to see which objects would attract my attention.  It was supposed to be a foretelling of my future interests.  Apparently, I went for gold jewelry and a book!  As far as the foretelling is concerned, it turned out to be quite accurate!  I do like gold jewelry and I love books!

Throughout my child hood, I received books as gifts for birthdays and other holidays.  I grew up in a time and place where there was no television.  I was 17 when I first watched television and that was after I had left Sri Lanka!  We would go to see movies at a cinema theater, but that was not an every day event.  As a result, reading was a main pastime.  I had a collection of my own books, I would borrow books from my cousins and friends, and I would borrow books from various libraries, including the British Council's and the United States Information Services'.  When I left Sri Lanka, however, I gave away all my books.

I had access to the university's library when I arrived in the United States, which was good because I didn't have money to buy books, other than text books.  Once I had some spare money, however, I began to buy books.  I used to belong to several mail order "book of the month" clubs: cook book of the month, craft book of the month, history book of the month, romance book of the month, etc.  Plus, there were all the book shops, including one across the street from my office!

At first, my books were kept in boxes, which we covered with table cloths and used as occasional tables because we didn't have money for furniture!  Later, I made book cases with some pieces of wood I found and cement blocks and bricks.  This was back in the 70s when wood and cement block (or brick) shelving units were quite common, especially in student housing.  Eventually, my mother acquired a small bookcase which someone was giving away.

Later, in the early 1980s, I bought bookcases.  A set of three for $19.99, each, that came in a flat package which I assembled - I still have two of them!  Considering that they are chipboard furniture, that's not too bad!  One of them is in the dining area:

Bookcase in the Dining Area

Table Linen in the cupboard 


























I display some of my blue and white china collection on some of the shelves, my cookbook collection on one shelf, and table linen, kitchen towels, ect. in the cupboard part behind the doors.

The other one, which has all shelves and no doors, is in the garage.  I am thinking of bringing it back in to use in the spare room, but, I need to check it for damage to the bottom (which is why I put it to use as storage in the garage). 

Later, still in the early 1980s, when I worked in an office space design/office furniture company, I bought two more bookcases, with my employee discount (cost + 10%, deducted weekly from my pay check).  I have those two with me, as well.

This one is in the living room:

Living Room Bookcase

Two shelves for display space and three shelves of books.  Mostly history-related books, with one or two classics.

The other, matching bookcase is in the family room:

Family Room Bookcase
This one has gardening and religion books on the top shelf, mostly crafts books on the next two shelves, and decorating and Christmas books on the bottom shelf. 

In addition to these bookcases, there are three shorter ones, including the one in the spare room, two wall mounted shelves in my bedroom (for my collection of paperback romance novels!), plus two tall bookcases in my daughter's room, with her books. 

According to one of my friends (L), it is not a bookcase unless each shelf is crammed full of books, with paperbacks set two rows to a shelf, and there are books lying horizontally on top of other books!  LOL!  That is exactly how these bookcases looked, several years ago!  I had about 9 linear feet of cookbooks, alone!  Also, according to her, there's no such thing as having too many books.  I am rather inclined to agree with her, but, I began to feel that I had an over abundance of books.

I have stopped buying books.  Instead, I have been borrowing from the library system, which consists of 72 branch libraries (the City of L. A. is very spread out).  If your local branch doesn't have a particular book but, it is in the system, you can request it and it will be sent to the local branch, or any other branch you specify (sometimes, when I was working, I used to request it be sent to the branch near my office, as it was convenient to pick it up during my lunch break).  In addition, I am a member of the public library system in the adjoining city, too (they have four branches); membership there is free, even if I am not a resident of the city, because I am a member of my city's public library system.

I have been going through and decluttering a few books at a time, over the past several years.  My books no longer overflow the shelf space I have for them.  But, I still have about 350 books (give or take a couple, and that doesn't include my daughter's books!).  I am looking at how many I have and am wondering why I am keeping so many.  Just how many gardening/landscaping books does one need?  How many knitting books?  How many cookbooks?  Especially, these days, when there is so much online?  How much is too much?

Which is why, in June, I want to challenge myself to declutter 30 books.  One book a day.  My friend L suggests decluttering one book for every 10 books I have, but, I don't think I can just go across the shelves and pull out every 10th book and put aside to donate!  It might be easier to do so, but, that is too random for me!  I have read most of the books on my shelves, but there are a few that I haven't read or finished reading, yet.  There are a few that I would like to re-read before I give them away, and that is OK, too.  But, the goal for June is 30 books to be decluttered. 

Anyone else wants to join the 30 books decluttering challenge?  You can declutter more than 30 books, if you like, of course, but, for me, for now, 30 is a good number to start with. 

26 comments:

  1. As soon as I saw the post heading I clicked on it lol. You know me and books! I love them. I find it really tough to get rid of them. I'm slowly trying to declutter them, but I don't find it at all easy. So I will challenge myself and join you to declutter 30 books. I do borrow from the library but I also still buy them (hanging head). I don't buy a lot of them new anymore (only a few from authors I really love) but mostly get them used. If there was such a thing as bookaholics I would be a member of it.

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    1. Ha, ha, you'll just have to make a card that says "Bookaholics Unite" to go with your "Procrastinators Unite" one! Or, maybe make one that says, "Procrastinating Bookaholics Unite"! That's me to a "T", as they say. Glad you'll be joining me in the decluttering of books, Sharon. :)

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  2. Haha, no, that’s out of the question for us.

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    1. Maybe you can just cheer us on from the sidelines, Akasha. :)

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    2. Half price books has a buy counter- you can get a little bit of cash for them.

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    3. Thanks - I'll look into that. :)

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  3. Hehee your story about choosing a book and gold jewelry reminded me of what I did. According to my mom, they expected me to choose a book, but I had picked up two ‘kavums’ and started clapping them together. So much for foretelling of my future interests! :)

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    1. Nil, that's too funny! But, maybe it showed that you had an appreciation of good food (I love kavum!), and you were mathematically inclined, since you were clapping which means music, which used to be considered as one of the branches of mathematics, and, hasn't physics been described as the "music of the universe"? Now, I'd say that's a pretty accurate foretelling, wouldn't you? :)

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    2. Heheee that’s a very clever interpretation Bless. :)

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  4. Books aren’t a weakness of mine because I don’t like dusting! Lol. In one of our former houses we had three tall bookcases full of books and when it was time to move and I saw how much dust they’d accumulated, I vowed to only keep a select few in cabinets with doors. We tend to read them online or on our iPads now. But if we had paper books I would certainly have a difficult time parting with them

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    1. They do tend to get dusty and need frequent dusting!

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  5. I am joining the 30 book challenge. I need to post a picture of one of my rooms and you can see why I need to decrease the number of books I have.

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    1. Glad to have you joining in, Anne. The more the merrier, as they say. :) Looking forward to seeing the picture of your room!

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  6. I don't have many books to de-clutter but I'm going to sort through Lily's books this next week. She loves to read and received some books for her birthday which we have already enjoyed together.
    I'm looking forward to reading more for pleasure once I finish my studying this summer. X

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    1. Good luck sorting through Lily's books. My daughter was more willing to let go of her books than I was of letting go of them! LOL! I still have a box of her books that she said I could give away, but I kept, because I couldn't bear to give them away!

      Hope this summer's course will go by quickly. I'm sure you'll be glad when it is over.

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  7. Decluttering books is SO hard! I got very excited to see the red Better Homes Cookbook on your shelf though - I bought my daughter a copy of that 15 years ago in a bookshop in Boston on our once-in-a-lifetime family holiday to the USA!

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    1. It's a classic, isn't it? I had an older version of it, and held on to it, even after I bought the newer version! But, I eventually gave away the older version in my last round of book decluttering.

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  8. I'll be joining you Bless. I'm nearing the end of decluttering my books - down to one small bookcase - so this will hopefully be the final push to get it finished.

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    1. Glad you'll be joining me, Eileen. It sounds like you are getting really close to your goal of having everything decluttered!

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  9. I did a massive book declutter a few years ago and now have one bookcase in the study. There are a few larger ones in the sitting room on the coffee table shelf, and that's it. In the early days of having my own home I built up loads and they were in almost every very room, but then I wanted a more streamlined look.

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    1. I believe I do have books in almost every room in this house! I have too many collectibles, too, but, that's another story!

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  10. When you said you had 300 books, I wondered how many we have. I did a quick count of the bookcase besides the computer and there were almost 200. If I counted the rest, I think we would pass the 300 mark easily. We got rid of boxes and boxes of books before we moved and had been decluttering at least a couple of them every year for several years before that. I'm not sure I can get rid of any more right now since we got rid of so many before we moved just two years ago. And most of the books are my husband's and I don't mess with them after I ask if he has any to get rid of. However, I will take a look around and see if I can come up with some to give away.

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    1. Sounds like you did most of your decluttering earlier, when you moved. That's the nice thing about moving - it forces one to go through stuff and decide what to keep, what to give away. I've stayed in this house for over 27 years. That's the longest I've lived in one house! Stuff tends to accumulate when one stays in one place for so long!

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  11. I love books, too. I have already decluttered my books, or I would join you. I can tell by your writing that you are an avid reader.

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    1. Thank you! I do admit to enjoying reading. :) Good job decluttering your books already! You get to cheer me on as I declutter! :D

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