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Although I do all my reading on my iPad these days, my home will always have lots of bookshelves and books. In the evening, I sit in my chair reading on my device, but look up and see the comforting and familiar walks of books I’ve seen all my life. My parents are big readers, and when I think of my childhood, I see all five of us curled up in our chairs reading. As an adult visiting my folks, we’d spend the evening reading. Books along the walls represent family and comfort and home.
So do what makes you happy. If it gives you a glow to look up and see the titles you remember with pleasure, keep them, whether you’re going to reread them or not. Since you asked for our thoughts, in your shoes, I’d keep almost all the books. But I’d probably scrap the encyclopedias.
Thank you so much, everyone!!! I was actually shocked to see how many people have responded and so glad to see so many bibliophiles on City-Data! Obviously, a great many readers and writers here (which should, I guess, be obvious for a forum like this, but I was still surprised)!
I think we will end up taking almost all the books, but probably only a few cookbooks. (Still debating about the encyclopedia, though.) I will continue reading this thread, though, because I have truly enjoyed reading about all your collections and ideas. I very much liked and enjoyed all the replies!
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.
Downloaded Kindle on my ipad, phone and desktop. Got rid of everything.
I'd get rid of the encyclopedias for sure, a lot of what's in there is probably outdated. If you move and you find you miss them you can probably pick up a set very cheaply at an estate sale. No one wants them now. If you needed information urgently and your internet was down you could probably phone a friend and ask them to look it up or go somewhere with free wifi and use your phone (assuming you have a smartphone).
I'd keep a few (10 or so) of your favorite cookbooks and donate the rest. If you have room in your new house I'd move what remains.
This is a very timely topic for me as I just embarked on this very project. We have hundreds of books accumulated over the years. What I plan to do is pack up all the ones that aren't meaningful in boxes and put them in the garage. They can stay there for awhile until the time is right for me to part with them. That gives me time to think and also contemplate empty shelves. We'll still have a ton of them left but it will be a start. My local library might be the lucky recipient; it has to be decided.
We bought a house with a big barn. It's about half filled with books. A few are mine and my wife's, but the majority are my daughters. We literally have 40 boxes of hers, mostly Japanese comic books. She is fluent in Japanese, even lived there for a couple of years. I have no idea if she'll ever read them again, but we won't get rid of them. Unless the barn burns down.... ; )
Books are like cockroaches. They keep on reproducing. When I moved to NV in 2008 I donated 60 boxes of books to the library. I have been here for 10 years now and I probably have @100 books. Mostly bought from thrift stores. I am trying though. I have several readers and probably about 1000 digital books. I try to limit the number of paper books I bring into the house.
I don't miss all those books I donated at all. I am glad I did it because they took up too much space and I was tired of dusting them! Would have cost a fortune to move all of them too!
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.
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?
@katharsis, I took almost all my books with me. The only ones I "left" were old editions of textbooks of a course I taught at the community college. All the rest, I packed up and hauled 1,200 miles to my retirement home. The reference books, I will keep. The fiction, after reading, I'll donate to the lending library at my 55+ community, (except for my Louis L'Amous books. I'll never get rid of those). The classics, (Cicero, Dumas, Plutarch, etc.), I'll also keep.
With Wikipedia, the need for a hard copy encyclopedia is past.
When teaching, for the first few years, I disallowed using Wikipedia as a source. However, it has become so good that it is now a valid, responsible source. Any inaccuracies and errors are usually corrected in short order.
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