On Preparing for Unexpected Moves as a Book Owner (and tips on what not to do)
You know how it goes, you start a newsletter, you publish a couple times, and then suddenly you’re putting the house on the market and clearing out the basement and your cat decides he’s going to give dying a solid college try (he failed thankfully) and you’re cleaning 8 times a day between showings and taking your (now recovered) cat out for car rides he hates for every single one of them. Oh and you own roughly 1700 books you now have to sort, figure out how to re-home some of, and pack the rest of, without knowing where you’re moving. It might be another house, it might be a much smaller apartment - everything is too expensive and nothing is available in your market, who knows! You know, normal life things.
Things I have learned in the book packing process so far:
Even if you think you have catalogued all of your books, you have not catalogued all of your books.
Finding a place to re-home books is a wretch. Our nearest Goodwill doesn’t sell adult books and it’s an uppity enough area that we have antique stores instead of thrift stores. No one actually buys books on Pangobooks or eBay. The little free libraries are all stuffed to the brim with gnawed upon children’s books. I’ve discovered I live exactly 41 minutes equidistant to three Half Price Books and who has 2 hours on the weekend when they have an entire house to pack?
If the number of uncatalogued duplicates I’ve discovered is anything to go by, books can mysteriously multiply if left on a shelf among their brethren long enough. It is the only explanation.
If you offer to pay an 11 and 13 year-old $2 per box, they will carry the heaviest of boxes for you where ever you want and beg you for more.
Graphic novels and manga are dense. Equally twice as heavy as anything else you own. Don’t pack them all together or you will suffer.
If you, for instance, have to reduced the books on your shelves by roughly half so you look like a book enjoyer and not a book hoarder for prospective house buyers, don’t break up series or authors! Half my books are now in boxes that say things like “Hardcover A-C” or “MMPB R-Z” or “Hardcover/TPB D-N”. So helpful, thanks past me.
Not wanting to move heavy boxes is going to make you think you should pack all your books in small boxes. What that actually means is you have to move roughly 1 million small boxes instead of half a million slightly larger boxes and it will take you twice the amount of time. Consider exactly how many stairs/car trips or doors you want to navigate before you make your decision on this. I chose wrong for the first couple hundred books. Don’t be me.
People are going to browse your shelves. The person looking at your house may be a racist/bigot/homophobe so maybe don’t leave all your queer/POC/socialist/anti-authoritarian books on the shelves. Or the explicit manga. Conversely, if you have already had enough contact through your realtor about absolutely unhinged things like proving the tornado siren isn’t a 5G tower because of “allergies” to know you absolutely do not want to enter a legal contract with someone no matter the circumstances, face out all the queer/POC/political activist/pro-vaccine books on your shelves. Maybe acquire a few more.
People are very kind, so ask, even if it feels like an imposition. My sister’s work had a sale for their warehouse book totes right before I knew I’d be moving. She asked if they happened to have any left and when they found out why she was asking, they found 20 additional totes for me. That means I can safely store a chunk of my library in barcoded water proof containers with handles. Even after the move, I can archive books to keep my TBR and favorites on my available shelf space without having to get rid of things I’ll re-read or otherwise want to keep. A very good friend of mine offered to come over and help me sort clothes and body double my ADHD self, despite being 7 months pregnant and having a 2 year old. My niblings have jumped in to move boxes and help me pack. My siblings and their SOs came over and helped exhume the basement. None of these people needed to do these things, but I very much appreciate their kindness for doing so.
So… This is a Newsletter about Reading
Needless to say February was not a great reading month for me. Most of what I finished was manga or graphic novels. I didn’t even finish my book club book for the month (thankfully I’d read it before)!
Standout book: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix (2025) I’ve really liked a lot of Grady Hendrix’s book and this one was a real standout for me. It’s set in Florida in the early 1970s at a home for teenage unwed mothers. There’s a lot of horror here in the trauma inflicted on these girls by existing in a society that views pregnant unmarried girls as a problem best unseen, and all the ways that unspools to affect and inflict additional trauma on them. None of them are there by choice and none of them are going to be allowed to keep the children they’re growing or have much of a say about anything else. They’re stripped of their names on entry to the house and given plant monikers instead to ‘protect’ their identities, even from the other girls. Despite all this, our protagonist, now known as Fern, manages to befriend some of her fellow housemates. While trying to help each other they turn to the one adult who seems to be on their side - the librarian who comes every two weeks in the book mobile. Naturally the librarian has an agenda of her own and while her encouragement into witchcraft helps at first, Fern and her friends find themselves in the middle of a brewing storm made of the wants and desires of the adults around them. I really recommend this! Even if you’re horror adverse, despite the fantastical elements the horror in this one is more rooted in the trauma humans inflict on each other by building societies that don’t let everyone have a voice or make their own choices, whatever those might be.
If you’re looking for another good horror read, I also recommend his novel The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Vampire Slaying (2021). This one is set in 1980s suburbia. While also being a fantastic read, it is lighter in tone then Wayward Girls.
Currently Reading: The Power Broker by Robert Caro (1975) About a year ago one of my favorite podcasts 99% Invisible committed to reading this in a year. As a biography of 1344 bible thin densely packed pages, you can imagine that’s quite an undertaking. I started it, and then proceeded to set it aside in favor of listening to every in depth episode they did about it and actually reading lighter fare. Last month they wrapped up the series and I decided it was time to dive back in. I’ve made it all the way to Oxford (so not that far), but it’s going much better this time. I’m hoping to finish it this year, though it’s definitely going to curtail my book count (and that is okay).
Since I also didn’t update for January and this chaos is likely to continue through at least Mid-April (the house is under contract, hurrah!), I’m planning to do a quarterly review and catch up on all this then.
Keep reading and enjoy not moving an entire library until next time!
Reading Snapshot
February books read total: 15
Yearly books read total: 36
Books read from my shelves: 18
Books in progress: 11
Current library checkouts: 12
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