Weed or read? Why not both?
I have a confession that might horrify some of my author friends: I don’t buy very many books. Last year I read 107 books, but I only bought 6. In my family, we are readers and book lovers, but maybe not book owners—a fact that tends to surprise some of my friends who know about my education, my job at a library, and my serious reading addiction. I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit during the last week as I’ve observed the latest internet tempest in a teapot brought on by an apparently incorrect interpretation of Marie Kondo and her organizing philosophies.
To be clear, I have nothing against owning books or defining yourself as a “book person”. In the past, I defined myself in the same way and took pride in my growing collection, which I had to pack up and move to new apartments on a regular basis. I always apologized for the large stack of heavy boxes full of books, but that apology was laced with an undercurrent of pride in my status as an intellectual. Thankfully most of my moves were in and out of student housing, so most of those helping me were in a similar predicament when moving time came for them.
However, at some point along the way, I realized that I owned too many books. I had collected a number of books in the hope that my kids would pick them up and read them some day. I was a voracious reader as a child and loved perusing anything I could find, including the World Book Encyclopedia and large-format history books from National Geographic. However, none of my kids have inherited that propensity, and while they love reading, they prefer to get their books from the library and watch National Geographic videos on YouTube. We’d also accumulated too many picture books that no one wanted to read, as well as beat-up used paperback fiction that was fine the first time, but didn’t need to hang around.
It definitely sparked joy to haul oversize, outdated reference works to the thrift store and to chuck some of the well-loved Dora the Explorer phonics readers in the recycling bin (I did a little happy dance that my kids have all outgrown “Hop Like a Tree Frog”). Other books are sticking around for the time being, even the Spanish-language short story collections that I have to admit I’m never going to re-read now that graduate school is far behind me. Perhaps in another ten years they will no longer spark joy when I reevaluate my collection, but for now they are still on my shelves.
At the same time, numerous studies have shown that children become stronger readers and do better in school when they are raised in homes with access to books. Last year I updated the carpet my family room and had to pack up all my books for a few months; I was surprised by how much I missed them and what a relief it was to have them all back in place on my new shelves. I felt joy after getting them back out of their boxes, and my kids have delighted in re-discovering many of the picture books they had forgotten about. As any librarian will tell you, re-evaluating and refreshing your collection (and thoughtfully removing some books) will renew its use.
Books are a miraculous invention and I wish that everyone in the world spent more time reading. Maybe you love buying books. Maybe you are a regular library patron and all the stacks of books in your home are borrowed. Maybe you combine both strategies. Whether you own 30 books or 30,000, it really doesn’t matter that much. Just be thoughtful about what you keep around, and if those books are weighing you down, it’s OK to get rid of some of them. As long as you keep reading, everything will be fine.
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