I finally got round to starting a Challenge of sorts on my Challenge blog yesterday. This first one is a year long Challenge to read one hundred books over the course of this year. I did start my reading straight after the New Year but I have just not gotten round to documenting it or writing a post until yesterday, and now we're already 26 days into this year … I get the feeling this is going to be another fast year!!
(See Here if you would like to read about it a bit more.)
But the main emphasis of it is to help me in my quest to down-size my book collection even more than I already have. I say my and I because after clumping together all of Alan's books, his fit onto less than one shelf (the second one down in this top photo) and all the rest are mine, all mine 🤣
When we move house, hopefully later on this year, we won't have the built in bookcase that we have here behind the living room door. We will most likely be taking this shelf/cupboard unit with us … but even that is not a certainty. This one does hold around one hundred books on the shelves, and it's my mission to try and get my fiction and non-fiction down to this number so my whole book collection can be in one place. As it says on my Challenge blog, I am also hoping to get my cook books down to this number too.
Now we just need to look for a house with a kitchen with room for 100 cook books on it's shelves!!
It might not seem that we are downsizing or simplifying the books that much, until you realise that a couple of years ago we had well over 600, and now after a few car boots sales last year we have 362 … I know this for a fact as I counted them all for the blog post yesterday 🙂
Sue xx
That's a lovely bookshelf/cupboard unit Sue, really nice solid wood. Before we moved down here to Somerset in 2010 (can't believe it was nearly 10 years ago, where does the time go?) I did have A LOT of books and gave loads to charity shops. However, the ones I kept have multiplied over the years and I have loads more now (can't think how that happens ;-) lol). So I need another sort out....especially of cookbooks, I dread to think how many I have. Perhaps that should be a challenge for me....see how many books I can let go of.
ReplyDeleteI've had the shelf/cupboard for years, it was a piece I bought for my tiny shop in Ulverston and used to be full of all sorts of lavender and beauty goodies, along with a few teddy bears and lacy bits. So basically it was a tax deductible purchase … the best sort :-)
DeleteI had to keep updating the book total yesterday as I did the blog post for Challenging Myself as I kept spotting other books lying on the worktop and coffee table etc, including three news ones that had just been delivered. I bet a few eagle eyed readers noticed the changing figures!!
We did this, a few years ago. But there are still books, which we will never re-read, and which need to "go."
ReplyDeleteBecause of my husband's eyesight problems, he can no longer read 'real' (hard cover) books. His reading has to be done, on his tablet, where he can adjust the print size. So his old books.... Really should not be taking up space.
You library bookcase, looks wonderful...!
💖💖💖💖💖💖
I think you can go round and around cutting out more and more of anything each time you sort through things. It feels like we've been doing this for years now. But at last we are seeing real progress in our simplification.
DeleteThe shelves are lovely aren't they :-)
Down sizing is never easy. I had to do it three years ago - and I managed it. I have never regretted it, although I do occasionally look for a book before I remember it is one of the ones I 'downsized'.
ReplyDeleteOh I've done that before now, spent ages scanning the bookshelves before realising that I've sold the book that I'm looking for!
DeleteI think women have more books because of all the cookbooks we have, I am going to give myself a "cook the books" challenge I think, go through the books and see how many recipes I use/would use, and see if the book justifies shelf space, if not I can photocopy the recipes I use and sell the books. I shall do a cook book post sometime.
ReplyDeleteYes, that's exactly what I did before selling off all the other cook books last year. The funny thing is I haven't cooked a single thing from any of the photos of the recipes I saved on the computer … now I'm asking myself if I can justify having so many cook books if I don't even cook from them at all.
DeletePerhaps I need to do it again but this time be even more ruthless, getting down to 100 cookbooks could just be the start of an even more stringent de-cluttering of books.
I read 92 books last year which was down a bit. Do you count cookery books as reading - I count them as 'looking at' books so they don't get written in the total.
ReplyDeleteNot sure how many I have here now - 10 more went off to charity shop last week but a LOT less than the 1,400 we had at the smallholding.
I do count cookery books as reading, mostly because I read them from cover to cover, sometimes as bedtime reading. I read all the blurb at the beginning, all the the recipes and even all the acknowledgements at the back ... so yes they will be counted 🙂
Delete'We' have literally thousands of books. Our smallest room is husband's library, but there are many, many more around the house. I would certainly find parting with many of mine very painful. They are old friends.
ReplyDeleteI used to feel just like until I realised with the amount of times we move house, our 'old friends' are really starting to weigh us down. And of course … we can't take them with us when we go, something that was really highlighted when my Dad died back in 2012 and we had to sort through all of his massive book collection. Although my younger son took some of them they were just my Dad's taste in reading and not ours. So unfortunately most of them had to go.
DeleteI don't know how many books I have but its a lot! I got rid of some last year as I had to move my bookcases up to a spare room as we are now working in the room they were in. I tried to be quite strict but I've still got tons! My problem now though is that my local Tsco has a charity bookcase at the door where people can bring books in and leave a small donation if they take any away and as I pass it at least twice a week when I shop I cannot pass without a quick look and of course I always seem to find at least one I'd like to read! Unfortunately I'm not handing in as many as I'm taking out so the collection is growing again! I read 30 books last year and thought I was doing well. I'm not a fast reader but I'm hoping to read a few more this year. Having watched your past challenges I'm absolutely certain you'll complete this one too, I look forward to watching your progress. x
ReplyDeleteThat Tesco Charity Book Table (or set of shelves in our branch) is hard not to browse over isn't it. But I have only ever bought one book off it, that one I took away with me and read on holiday before donating it to the tiny little charity shop on Sark, so it's a book that is raising a lot for charity … and travelling well.
DeleteWhen we had our flooded basement a few years back all our basement furniture and my books had to be put into storage. Harvey said I could take 5 totes of books to be stored.... Well every so often I asked for just one more tote. I ended up with 8 (I told him my childhood books were not included and deserved a tote all to themselves). I cried as I took old friends into my hands and placed them into the donation bags. Still miss them to this day. But the bookshelves do look wonderful right now and I am once again using the library much more.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
It is hard to let some books go isn't it. I'm hoping in the future that I will be using the library much more, I do use it occasionally at the moment, but not as much as I should, it would be a crying shame to lose our library services.
DeleteWell done on downsizing the book collection. I know cook book browsing is a lovely hobby but since going vegetarian I now have only 3 cookbooks.
ReplyDeleteI wrote out my favourite recipes into a nice notebook and just Google anything else I want to make, so all the other cookbooks went to a local free exchange library.
It takes a while to get to the point of being realistic about ever really making some recipes.
Wow … THREE cookbooks!!
DeleteAlthough I could never get to that number, I treated myself to a lovely write-in recipe book that I intend filling up with all MY favourite recipes one day … that oft quoted ONE DAY!! Once I do that I will let a lot more of my cookbooks go.
You put that SO well, we really do need to realistic about what we will ever really cook don't we :-)
Downsizing my books is something that I find very difficult to do - although I have had to get a bit better at it as there is very little space left on the existing shelves - or for more shelves!
ReplyDeleteI have passed along a few to friends and donated others for my church's annual book sale but they give me comfort and I love them so they stay! I would venture to say that I have around 400 hundred or so - and there are many that I've still to read - but I love knowing they are there and just waiting for me! :-)
You should count them, last year I thought I had about 200 left … I was wildly wrong wasn't I … haha.
DeleteI know the feeling well of knowing that they are there waiting to be so much.
That's a really lovely bookshelf.
ReplyDeleteI had to downsize my books a year ago and it was so, so hard. I need to do it again and, hopefully, it will be a bit easier this time.
xx
Yes, I love my shelves :-)
DeleteI find there is a right time to work on downsizing books, you just have to wait for it to strike and go with the flow.