Letting go of books

If I were a guy, this would be my wet dream. (img src)

I believe there is such a thing as too many books. In my youth, I never thought so. I wanted to own a library as huge as Belle's in Beauty and the Beast. I thought a library like that was better than love.

But it's not love that convinced me otherwise about books. It was a lingering sense of guilt (thank you, Catholic education) and two floods. The first flood happened 3 years ago. I wrote about it here. And though my books were all saved, I thought that it was about time I trimmed down my library. So I had shelves made that were 4 1/2 feet off the floor, and I challenged myself to own only enough books that would fit in them.

Of course, that didn't happen. Once again, books claimed their dominion over my work desk, my dresser, on top of my bedroom drawer, and even the bedroom floor.

Then, a few weeks ago, another flood. It came into our house again and though it didn't reach as high as it did 3 years ago, it still managed to rise to 6 feet inside my house.

We had time to take a pic, yes. Am I smiling? Yes. At the absurdity of it all.

My books, as usual, were safe. Obviously my priority, after my children, the rest of my family, and our food, is my book collection. Four of us helped transport my books from the first floor to my house's second floor. Four people. Took us like 15 minutes. Which, come to think of it, isn't that long. But when water's coming inside your home, 15 minutes is plenty long.

And so, in the middle of piling my books on top of my bed, I suddenly thought, "I have too many books." I wasn't even sure I could read all of them. At least, not in the next year or so, if I'm being realistic about my current rate of book acquisition vis-a-vis the time I actually have to read. And in the face of disasters like the one we were experiencing, how much did I REALLY need all those books? I didn't even like some of them.

Therefore, my resolution--actually my entire family's resolution when we started rebuilding again--is to trim things down to what we actually need. Screw consumerism. Screw attitudes that lead to wastage which leads to garbage piling up which leads to waterways clogging up which leads to floods.

In our case, it's not a simple matter of upping and leaving our area. Our home has been in our family for more than 50 years. Which, I think, gives us a pretty good gauge of global warming/rising water levels/congestion in our Metro, considering we've never been flooded like this before. Anyway.

The only things I really have in excess are my books. So, I've been ruthlessly sorting through my books, picking out the ones that I 1) didn't love; 2) loved but know will never read again; 3) liked but feel that it's time for the book to move on; 4) have not read yet and know that I'm not inclined to read in the foreseeable future; 5) think have just been with me for too long.

Ok, I should be honest. I don't think it would have been easy for me to do this had I not owned an ereader. Or two. And though this post is not going to become an ode to e-readers and ebooks, I can't deny that the convenience of the device and the ease with which I can get ebooks allowed me to finally let go of print books I held on to for no good reason at all. Of course, when the apocalypse comes and the turbines stop spinning leaving the world in eternal blackness, I and other ebook advocates will probably kick ourselves for disposing of so many of our print books. But until then, I'm enjoying the fact that I have options with which to consume my reading material.

Ah, consumerism wins still.

To date, I've weeded out around 150 of my books. A third of that I chose to donate. The rest I was planning to sell or give away to friends, but events during the Filipino ReaderCon convinced me otherwise. I met a couple of public school teachers who are running a reading program with limited resources and support from the school administration. Yet, against all odds, they're trying to make it work. And the students themselves have owned the reading program.

The panel on "Reading Programs that Work" during the 2nd Filipino ReaderCon. Admirable women, all.

Which leads me to another conclusion when it comes to giving away books: if I'm to donate books, I'd really rather give them to a school or a library that has a fantastic reading program run by passionate reading advocates. Because they would know what to do with the books, and essentially, I'm giving my books away so that they'll be read by someone else. I don't want my books to be shunted off to some shelf in the library, never to be borrowed, only to be displayed. I can display them on my shelf, thank you very much. But I'd like for them to be used.

Hence, I've been asking around about places that run great reading programs for disadvantaged populations. Which brings me to another question or, perhaps, the birth of an idea: who collects information like this? Who has a list of public schools, public libraries, foundations, and institutions in the Philippines with great reading programs but who need help in terms of book donations? I'd really like to know.

Anyway, I'm giving away most of the books I weeded out. I'm also selling a few, but mostly to contacts on Facebook. I figure I might as well try and make back a teeny percentage of what I invested in them in the first place. Gives me a great opportunity to try out e-commerce, too, though I don't think I'm going to get into that for myself. It's already my job.

Currently, I have something like 300 books left on my shelves, not counting all the reference books, cook books, and education-related books. Half of those 300 are TBR books, so I'm prioritizing print right now. I might be able to cut down that number, most likely to make space for others.

Suddenly, I imagine that growing a library is like growing a garden. You cut and you prune to make it grow or become more beautiful. Or perhaps growing bonsai is a better analogy. Then again, this whole library-garden analogy is hardly original. But you get my point.

So farewell, books I'm going to let go. You have served me well, either by giving me a few hours or days of distraction or by adorning my shelves, making me feel so much more accomplished or fortunate for having you. Our journey is done now. Go and find a new owner--someone who, hopefully, will cherish you more than I did. And because you were mine for a few years or months, I'd like to think you carry some of my soul with you, as I carry your story with me (well, at least for those I've read)...

That's a nice goodbye, isn't it?