Episode 2, KonMari: Books

KonMari simplified:  This week SORT THROUGH ALL YOUR BOOKS.

These were the very full shelves in my front room.

Longer version for people who like anecdotal motivation:

The second step in the konmari method is to organize your books. This is a tough one for me. I own tons of books. TONS!

My personal collection beside my bed (might I recommend "1491" for a great look at pre-Columbian Americas).

And so does my husband.

My husband's bedside collection (I totally recommend "Challenger Deep" for an exploration of childhood mental illness).

And so do my kids.

My son's room (I don't know what's on this shelf, and half the titles are in Spanish).

My other son's room (books AND instruction manuals for LEGO kits).

My daughter's room (everyone should own C.S. Lewis' entire works).

And the floor (I loved "The House of the Scorpion").

We read a LOT. I definitely struggle getting rid of books because I feel like they have this inherent value that can't be replaced. What if the internet goes down in the middle of the zombie apocalypse? We're going to want that handbook of battlefield first aid for sure. And what if I have grand-kids one day who come to visit and have never heard of Anne of Green Gables. I'm definitely going to need to have the entire collection available at a moment's notice. So thinking about giving away books is a little bit paralyzing for me.

Here's where the konmari method can help. She recommends, that just like your clothes, you gather all your books into one place. That way you can really see what you have.  this took me many, many heavy trips to gather up books from all around our house. Next, you must pick up each book one at a time and decide if it belongs on your shelf, or if it's time to let it go.  If you bought it years ago and never read it, you probably never will. Let it go. If you have already read it, you probably won't read it again. Let it go.

You get the picture. Basically let them all go.

Ha!
Yeah right!
Not a chance.


This is so hard right?

She suggests thinking about creating a book "hall of fame."  This is a small collection of your most treasured books. And then let the rest go.

Now in my house, a small collection just isn't going to cut it. I LOVE the look of a full book shelf. So the best I could do was to seriously cut back on the hoards I do have.

Giving away books is not easy for me. Luckily I had two big opportunities to ease the pain.
First we have a used book store that will buy back old books and give you credit to buy new books. So packing up a box to trade at the bookstore feels pretty good because I know it means I'll be getting new books! Okay, so it's a tad counterproductive, but it does shrink my pile a bit since it takes several book donations to equal a single new book purchase.
My second great cheat is to donate to my husband's classroom library. He teaches sixth grade English, so any of the young adult books I have can be put in his classroom. Now they are out of my house and serving a worthy purpose, but I don't have to feel like I've given them up.

All boxed up and ready to head to their new home.

In the end I had four big boxes to sell back to the book store and another two bigger boxes to donate to my husband's class. Not bad right?  And I got all of my books to fit in one room instead of filling up a bookcase in every single room of my house (I even had three bookcases of books hiding at my mother-in-law's house!).

Here are my shelves now. Yes they are still full, but not as full as they were before, AND they now hold ALL the books from my other rooms too. And a full book shelf really does make me so HAPPY!

Good luck friends!

Marcia

P.S. Confessions of Failure:  Not only did I not get rid of as many books as I should have, but I actually got rid of less than I thought. When I was done boxing up all the books I thought we didn't need anymore, I let my husband have a quick peak in case there were any he felt he still needed. It turns out he "needed" them all. We negotiated a bit, and in the end he put about half of the books back on the shelf! So instead of getting rid of six boxes, we only got rid of four. But hey, it's a start.