I’ve been continuing my uncluttering kick. I got rid of around 40 books last night, give or take. They were all books I figured would be difficult to sell and that I knew I’d never look at again.
My first book-purging goal is to get rid of enough books so that all my remaining ones fit on my two six-foot-tall bookcases. Even that goal is hard. I haven’t achieved it yet. I have tons of books. I have such an attachment to them — they’re like my children. Each one has a story behind it and is full of ideas. And collectively, they make me look and feel studious. I admire people who have lots of books.
I did a book purge when I moved out of my old apartment two years ago, but I’ve since acquired more. When we moved in together, Matt jokingly told me that I wasn’t allowed to buy a new book without getting rid of an old one. It never happened.
I have conflicting reasons for doing a book purge: (1) I want to get rid of stuff in order to make a potential move easier and to just have less clutter around, and (2) I want to make a little money. These reasons conflict, because it’s actually a hassle to make money selling your books — it’s easier just to donate them. I’m going to take a bunch of them to the Strand this weekend and try to sell them; those I can’t sell I might just donate in bulk to the Salvation Army down the street. Getting rid of them book-by-book on Amazon seems way too slow and inefficient for the money I’d make off them. Andy made a good amount of money selling books on Amazon, but I’ve sold only one so far out of the several books I’ve put up for sale. And I had to go to the post office. I can’t imagine doing that 50 to 100 times. I’d rather just get them off my hands in one fell swoop.
As for my CDs, last night I ordered a bunch of ultra-thin CD sleeves, which should reduce the physical volume of my CD collection to about 1/3 of its current size after I toss out the bulky jewel cases. Of course, I had to spend money to buy the CD sleeves, so I guess I value the uncluttering itself more than the small amount of money after all.
The BF and I are sort of bookhounds, too. I donated and threw out SO many books…he did, too, and we still have two huge bookshelves and a couple of small ones full of books.
If it’s not too late, you might think about doing the bookcrossing thing. It’s a fun idea, and who knows, it might actually work.
http://www.bookcrossing.com/
I wasn’t joking… I just didn’t enforce it (because of my own CD collecting habit ;)
If it helps you feel better I thought about buying a vacation house to store all my extra crap I cannot bear to part with, and an extra wine cellar, but came to senses and just started discarding useless stuff.