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When I retired I had to make the very tough decision to let my books go. Moving 1200 miles I was not going to pay a small fortune to move my collection. I had a VERY extensive collection of biblical reference works that I spent 40 years collecting. I tried to find a college or seminary student to give them away but everyone prefers electronic versions nowadays. So I did the next best thing: I gave them to charity. Hopefully many of them ended up with someone that appreciated them. I will tell you I grieved losing them but I’ve moved on. Actually, I’m starting a new collection of different subject matters.
I gave away most of my books. All I have left is one small cardboard box of books. I'm moving out of my apartment at the end of next month, and all of my possessions are going into a storage unit. All of my stuff will fit into a 5' x 5' storage unit, so you can tell that I figured out how to get rid of a lot of stuff. I did it little by little. At first, I only gave away small quantities of things, then it got easier to clear out more stuff. Anything that I have not used in the past year was sold or donated. It was not easy, I had never known how it feels to get rid of things that were accumulated over a long period of time. I still read a lot of books, but they are Kindle e-books or books checked out from my excellent local library.
What criteria did you use when deciding which books to take with you to you moved to your retirement home, or when you decided that it was time to seriously 'downsize' and/or get rid of excess "stuff"? And are you happy with your decision?
What I have done up to now is to "collect" books for a while and then, about every three years or so, I donate the ones I know I won't read again, but now I am hesitating about the 50 or so books that I haven't read in at least ten years, but that I enjoyed very much the last time I read them. (Most of these I have read at least three times.) My husband has about the same number of books I do, plus we have also collected about 50 or so cookbooks that we now very seldom use, thanks to the Internet. plus we also have a set of encyclopedias published in the early 80's that I think might come in useful if the Internet ever goes down for a long time, so we are looking at possibly moving about 200 books altogether. This is a long distance move, so I don't want to take any books that we probably will never read again.
(But, please, no suggestions about E-books, Kindles, etc. I know that many people love them, and they definitely save space, but I hate them and would never consider buying one for myself. To emphasize, I know they are GREAT for some people, but not for me.)
Thanks in advance!
P.S. I am putting this in the Retirement forum rather than the General Moving forum because 20 years ago, I would have taken all my books without even thinking about it. But now, as a senior, I don't want to have any more "stuff" than I actually want or need.
I would suggest getting rid of all of them. Anything you want to read again someday can probably be purchased used on Amazon for pennies on the dollar. I've bought the same book 3 times, for a $1 each time, which is still less than what it cost brand new. It's time to let go.....give yourself some breathing room.
When we moved from the Midwest to SLC, we went through all our books and donated a lot to Goodwill. Still, we moved a LOT of them... probably about 20 boxes.
We're hopefully moving again this summer and will weed out some more. I try to evaluate a book as I get done reading it. If I liked it so much I'd want to read it again, it goes in a bookshelf. If it wasn't a favorite, or was just so-so, I donate it right away.
That evaluation helps some, because I'm still buying books all the time. I'd love to be able to donate to a library, but I'm not sure how so many others accomplish that. Before we left STL a few years ago, I called more than one library and asked about donating (have called here in SLC as well).
They had so many criteria that had to be met it was impossible. Books had to be less than a couple years old, in perfect condition, not anything they already had, etc. I would have had to spend twice the time to make boxes of books I hoped they'd take, then wait for them to approve or reject, and possibly bring some back home. Then, take the leftovers elsewhere.
Maybe just these two cities have seriously picky libraries, but it's a real disappointment. So, I gave up on the libraries and just let Goodwill have them.
Find a small town library and take your books there
We had a huge library in our 30-year home - an entire wall that was a custom bookshelf plus another five or so book cases throughout the house.
When we moved to our next, forever house, we had very little space and had to get rid of 80% of the books. I was devastated as those were books I used a lot (many reference books). But I now barely notice their absence. I look things up on-line a lot so the need for reference material is almost zero at this point, and I never go back and re-read the novels.
Books are a wonderful part of being human and literature is one of our crowning achievements, but sadly the need for books is a thing of the past. I never thought I would say that, but it is true. At any rate, if you need to shed a library, you will get over it.
My library system doesn't add any donated books to its collection. All donations are sorted through and quickly discarded or sold to fund library programs.
It's amazing how many people donate boxes full of books that have obviously been kept in a garage, storage space, basement, locker, barn, or shed. They come in by the carload. The sorters can tell right away if books have been kept in unheated, quasi-outdoor spaces because they smell dusty or musty and are slightly warped in shape. Sometimes there are cobwebs or dead bugs in the boxes and bags. Sometimes the pages are ever so slightly damp. We cannot sell any of these dusty/musty books.
Often we can tell that many of these spoiled books were originally quite expensive and certainly many are rare and out of print. But in that condition, we can't put them on our sale shelves.
I wish that people would donate or sell their used books when they are still clean and have always been kept in heated, ventilated rooms. Otherwise, the waste is quite shocking.
Speaking as a retired librarian and as an unrepentant lover of all things literary: no one gives a crap about dusty old books.
It's all about content, not format. If you toss out a dozen musty editions of Jane Austen novels, that doesn't mean her works will be forgotten or ignored or abandoned. Get over it.
What criteria did you use when deciding which books to take with you to you moved to your retirement home, or when you decided that it was time to seriously 'downsize' and/or get rid of excess "stuff"? And are you happy with your decision?
What I have done up to now is to "collect" books for a while and then, about every three years or so, I donate the ones I know I won't read again, but now I am hesitating about the 50 or so books that I haven't read in at least ten years, but that I enjoyed very much the last time I read them. (Most of these I have read at least three times.) My husband has about the same number of books I do, plus we have also collected about 50 or so cookbooks that we now very seldom use, thanks to the Internet. plus we also have a set of encyclopedias published in the early 80's that I think might come in useful if the Internet ever goes down for a long time, so we are looking at possibly moving about 200 books altogether. This is a long distance move, so I don't want to take any books that we probably will never read again.
(But, please, no suggestions about E-books, Kindles, etc. I know that many people love them, and they definitely save space, but I hate them and would never consider buying one for myself. To emphasize, I know they are GREAT for some people, but not for me.)
Thanks in advance!
P.S. I am putting this in the Retirement forum rather than the General Moving forum because 20 years ago, I would have taken all my books without even thinking about it. But now, as a senior, I don't want to have any more "stuff" than I actually want or need.
I have a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook with a ring binder style that I got when we married. When I come upon a recipe that’s a keeper, I write it nicely on quality paper, punch holes and stick it in the cookbook. I’ve even taped magazine recipes to paper and stuck it in the book. My BHG cookbook is my go to cookbook. So, I’d go through my old cookbooks, revisit the recipes I liked, make them again to see if we still liked them, put them in the BHG and get rid of the cookbook.
And I will keep books that are important to me, however, I can get a lot of titles via inter library loan. As far as encyclopedias? I can’t even imagine keeping them because once again, libraries. And the information in them can be very outdated.
By the way, I am not a minimalist. We have a library and my husband loves DVD’s. We probably have 2000. It’s crazy, and he buys them at garage sales, thrift shops and library sales. The man never pays retail.
What criteria did you use when deciding which books to take with you to you moved to your retirement home, or when you decided that it was time to seriously 'downsize' and/or get rid of excess "stuff"? And are you happy with your decision?....
When I moved to Europe from the U.S. I gave away all my furniture and household goods and some clothes. What I shipped was all my books and CD, and a very few other things.
I still have about the same number of books, but I gradually learned to ditch books as I acquire new ones. Nevertheless, I have 1,000 books and the same amount of CDs.
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Solly says — Be nice!
