Confessions of an Aging Book Lover

More than a dozen years ago, I discovered Anne Fadiman’s “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader,” a collection of essays on her love affair with books.  My favorite was the story of how, after five years of marriage, she and her husband finally merged their bookshelves, a tedious process that included a lengthy debate as to whose copy of the many duplicate books they would keep.

My tale has a different twist. Because Kent and I have different tastes in reading we have few duplicates to wrangle over. But the heart of Fadiman’s tale seems all too apt. Our imminent move from a house to an apartment requires us to divest ourselves of at least half the books on our 70 feet of bookshelves.

I have been picking through my share of the library on a daily basis for a month now.  Each time I find a few more books I think I can bear to part with.  

Commercial photo books and maps of my travels were the first to go: today, the images and information are easier to find on the internet than thumbing through print copies.


Biographies took a big hit. While most are about interesting people, few are really well written or offer enough insights to make me want to read them again. Robert Caro (biographies of Lyndon Johnson), Anais Nin, and Jill Ker Conway are notable exceptions.


Business books: Most weren’t worth reading even when I worked in finance.  I should have disposed of them years ago.


Fiction.  Any novel I enjoyed found a niche on my shelf.  But there are very few I’ll make time to read again.  And if, perchance, I do want one, Amazon or my public library will ride to the rescue.  What did I keep?  Barbara Kingsolver, Sue Monk Kidd, Hermann Hesse, Patrick White, John Barth.  Some are great writers, some had a profound impact on me when I first read them … and I have read most of them more than once.


Philosophy. These were among the hardest to sort through, as my continued study of philosophy and religion leads me to refer back to things I read years ago.  I’ve kept all but a few that were particularly badly written or badly reasoned.


Cookbooks.  I don’t have many, but I’ve kept them all.

As ruthless as I have been, I still have too many books. And the pain gets deeper with every pass.

How about you?  What would you keep and what would you get rid of?

 

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