Summer Weeding

One of the hardest, and usually necessary, things for a reader/book collector to do is weed the collection. As a librarian, I was pretty ruthless when it came to weeding. Shelves stuffed with books no one wants to read prevents people from finding the newer, more appealing ones. I find it a bit harder to weed my own collection.

The attraction for me in having a lot of unread books is that I have a variety from which to choose my next read. But the problem -- well, one of them -- is that I keep buying books, more than I can possibly read, and space for them runs out.

Today, I've been weeding my science fiction and fantasy books. I was reading science fiction nearly exclusively in the '80s and bought a LOT of science fiction and fantasy novels in the '80s and '90s, including series, one of which is six paperbacks of over 500 pages each. For me, that's at least a year of reading time.

I keep everything I read and liked and I'm keeping all the unread books that still sound appealing and have under 500 pages. It's a real slog. I feel like I'm saying goodbye to future friends I've let down. But new authors and new books are pushing them out. The shelves are looking a lot better already.

Wait until I get to the mysteries and general fiction.