There’s a lot of talk about minimalism and tiny houses these days. Generally, I figure that most people who choose to live in a tiny house probably don’t have much stuff to begin with. Or they’re just not that materialistic. They’re outdoorsy, probably, and live in warm climates. They entertain only small parties, if any, because they only own 2 plates and 2 forks and one knife. And they seem to have a romantic idea about sleeping on plywood beds in treehouse style loft bedrooms conducive to hitting your head if you suddenly sit up.
I’ve watched a few of those shows and frankly, it just looks too much like camping to me. Tiny bathrooms where you can sit on the toilet to shower (not a high-value efficiency for me), steps that hide dog dishes (because tiny house people always have room for the largest dogs), shoe storage that doubles as art installations – all these things look nice – in theory. For reals, I’d like to see the stats on how long before these tiny house owners put their digs up for sale on Kijiji.
Maybe the only ones that pique my interest are the tiny-house-book-lovers. You know, people who basically build themselves a self-sufficient closet to hold all their best friends – er, favorite books. Books as art installations? That I understand.
However, as a bookishly nerdy person whose favorite activities all center around words, I don’t have as many books as you might think. Oh sure, I have plenty, more than the average book-bear probably. But I actually don’t have a problem with getting rid of books if – IF – they no longer serve me.
I think my purging prowess started when we moved for the fourth time in the first seven years of being married and I lifted a box heavy with university textbooks that had not been unpacked from the previous move. What purpose did it serve me to save my Microbiology textbook from my ill-fated first year of nursing school? When would I need to urgently look up how a virus evolves the life span of a paramecium? And given constant scientific research and updating, how could I ever know if my textbook would stay “right”? And finally, I never really read it in the first place. Microbiology, Biology, Zoology – all the science-y textbooks – are long gone. And I never missed them.
I started my theory of decluttering before the internet became a THING – when copious amounts of unreliable information were available on the Google – in mere seconds. Way back then, my first criterion for letting go of a book was: Can I find this at the library? Oh, sure, it’s nice to have something around sometime just because you like a subject. Case in point: I never did let go of my Art History textbook from 1988 and I still look things up in it. Because I’m interested in art, especially old art, for which there’s not a lot of new research being dug up, archaeologically speaking. And, in my opinion, an art history textbook makes a nicer coffee table book than Physics, a textbook I also never read but which additionally gives me the heebie-jeebies.
This brings up my second criterion, which was to honestly ask myself: will I ever actually read this – again or for the first time? When I first started homeschooling my boys, I supplemented our bookshelves by haunting garage sales and second-hand stores. I bought anything and everything that looked educational, classic or fun. The result was bookshelves overflowing with many, many unread books. While it served us well to have lots to choose from, I was again confronted with this problem when staging a house to sell. Rather than box up the bulk and shove it under the stairs, I purged again – this time, asking myself the hard questions like: Will I ever read The Count of Monte Cristo or Mein Kampf or HTML for Dummies? Yeah, no.
But that’s me. Physics and HTML might be your perfect bookshelf fodder. And maybe at one time, it was for me, too. On a podcast that I listened to this morning about this subject, the guest talked about letting go of the things that are “no longer you” – which is sometimes hard to do. But she also said that she trusted herself to remember what was important. The result is a lot more room in your brain to focus on what’s here and now. And maybe a lot more room on your bookshelves.
These days, I try to “preview” books before I ever buy them – meaning I use the library again, a lot. There’s nothing worse than spending $30 on a book that you open up and say, “Oh no.” Of course, COVID-19 has made using the library a little different (hurry up, Phase Two!) but in the meantime, I’m shopping my own shelves for reading material. Because I still have books I have to read. And plenty more to give away.