After nearly 8 years of marriage, we have amassed somewhere between 1500 and 2000 books. And that’s with me being very active at our local library and usually only buying books I luuuuuurve and Brian also having worn out his library card and only buying books that are ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, HONEY, I PROMISE.
But living in 850 sq feet with two adults, a toddler and a baby means that you quickly learn how to make room in odd places…
Yes, those are my books on top of kitchen cabinets. (and a filing cabinet on my fridge and some rather ripe bananas…that’s another post…).
And this is an alcove in our foyer that Brian decided would make an excellent bookcase for him so he put shelves into it.
And then we just put bookshelves everywhere we can stick them.
This is just a small sample of the madness. Usually there are also piles of books in the corners, under the beds, beside the bed, on the floor, in the kids room….you get the picture.
(I am actually very proud of how few books we have in our house! This is quite the accomplishment. You should have seen us – or helped move us - three years ago….)
And you also learn which books you love and which books you like and which books you are embarrassed to have on your bookshelf (yes, I’m looking at you, “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People“…)
We have purged our books no less than 6 times apiece. And we still somehow have full bookshelves.After our last move, we did another purge which resulted in just 2 boxes in storage, a house filled with books and then another two bookcases in my parents basement (my poor parents…).
This week, I did another purge and lugged 178 books to the Salvation Army for donation. About half of them were Christian fiction books, another quarter were general market fiction that didn’t live up to the hype or I never read again and another quarter were old books that I’d rescued from libraries because I loved old romances from the 30s like Kathleen Norris. But since it had been a good 15 years since I’d read Kathleen Norris, out she went.
Of particular note is the fact that I have gotten rid of every single Brock and Bodie Thoene book in my house. They alone encompassed about 60 books. For those unfamiliar, the Thoenes are an evangelical husband and wife writing team that wrote particularly about WW2 and the struggle to establish the nation of Israel. I got turned on to them in high school and amassed the complete collection.
Since then, a lot of political views have changed but I still liked the story and the writing. I read them over every few years, right through the series chronologically. But the last two times, it was less than satisfying as the propaganda nature ad overly simplistic, onesided view was starting to grate on me. I knew I probably wouldn’t read them again after that but I hung onto them nonetheless.
Then this election cycle started. And suddenly I started to get emails from the Thoenes that usually started with the sentence “The deceiver, Barack Hussein Obama….” and end with clarion calls for McCain-Palin. The worst rumours, innuendos and false accusasions of the campaign somehow made their way into my inbox when I’d signed up for the publishers email list.
This is not what I signed up for.
After 19 fear mongering emails too many, I not only unsubscribed from their publishers email list but decided to get rid of all of their books to boot.
My tastes – in books and politics – have changed.
It’s plain to see where our interests lie now and that’s how a bookshelf should be. Literature, fiction, poetry, Biblical studies, theology, church matters, emergent, missional, biography of greats, memoirs and so on…And nary a self-help tome in the bunch!
And yes, my bookshelves are alphabetically organised by author last name. *sigh* I just can’t help myself….
I have also signed on as a book reviewer for Thomas Nelson Publishers so book reviews will be more common….stay tuned for those!
