On packing & pruning books ⁂ Antilibraries Analects ⁂

We’re preparing to move next month (not far, other side of the neighborhood!) and this weekend we’ve started the packing process by going through our bookshelves.

I did a quick count recently, and Jinjin and I have on the order of 900 books, substantial majority of which are mine.

Since this represents quite a few heavy boxes, I want to go through all these books before we move, and give away all that we decide we non longer want or need.

Pruning, winnowing, sorting, triage — there are many ways of talking about the process of intentional removal, of parting with the books that, for whatever reason, have been part of our lives.

Some of these books have been with us for years, some acquired in the past month. Some completed, some ignored, some forgotten.

There are many books I’ve read and loved and wish to keep, but these make up a small fraction of the whole.

Greater in number are those we’ve read, or skimmed, or looked at once or twice, and decided we simply no longer care about; these are fairly easy to part with.

Greater still, those books I’ve added to my antilibrary, and that still reside there — ones I may not have thought about recently, but as soon as I look at the cover or spine, make me remember why I got them, and excited to read them again.

Those antilibrary treasures are, of course, the books to keep.

In between, messier categories:

• Books received as gifts but no longer such a good fit for our interests…
• Books on topics I still find fascinating, but where I sense a mismatch in taste or style or resolution or approach, and can’t see myself really reading…
• Books that may prove useful references but also we could probably grab the ebook or look up the material on the internet so is it really worth keeping?…
• Books to skim first and then give away!
• Books that make great decoration, or have functional utility (like the giant Chris Ware book that’s propped up our projector for years)…
• Books that I’ll never read again, but appreciate and have the urge to keep as a sort of talisman or memory marker…

Questions to consider:

How do you decide when to read something, or if you’ll ever read it at all?

How does an antilibrary expand and, perhaps on rarer occasions, contract?

How do you know when it’s time to get rid of a book?

Please feel free to share any thoughts here!

Also, if you’re in the Brooklyn area…let me know if you might be interested in some soon-to-be-jettisoned books?

Brendan