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Betsy
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| Posted: Oct 16 2012 at 9:24pm | IP Logged
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SuzanneG wrote:
And, don't forget....you can always just put one of the subjects in your fireplace!  |
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Love it!
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When handcrafting my work, I always pray that it will raise your heart to all that is true, modest, just, holy, lovely and good fame!
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StephanieA
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| Posted: Oct 17 2012 at 2:16pm | IP Logged
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I guess I might have a different take. After homeschooling for 22 years...I am feeling book-urdened.
Too much is...well, too much. Yet, I enjoy browsing the library book sale every year for fun. My rule...if I bring a book in this house...one has to leave 
My older kids have different tastes than my middle ones...so this is a challenge too.
I find that my younger kids don't even go to the bookshelves much. But if I bring a book home from the library (even a semi-less-than-stellar book), they want me to read and reread it. Ummm....
Meanwhile, my shelves are full of what I consider - great books!
The books are very accessible to the kids. I think it is like toys. Put them away for a while and then bring them back as "new" later on. But how to do that with books - like I have the time to reshelve books?
That said, sometimes I just get tired of even the good books. I have been know to pass some of these on because, well, I just get tired of reading them. But I know they are blessing someone else right now.
To store or not to store....In perspective - how long will it be before I will be able to read that tome on philosophy or Church history or the 800 paged book on Catherine the Great? Just how many books like this do I need? I haven't made it past page 100 on Walsh's books and I really want to. Realistically it will be another 10 years before I will have time since the little one is just 2 years old.
Will some else be blessed by it by then? I struggle with some of these questions, but I see my mother's dilemma too. She collected books, shelved them, reshelved them and now doesn't know what to do with them all. In fact, they sometimes "bother" her. If she lends them out, they don't come back. However, she also isn't in any way going to read 98% of what she has.
My son returned from the monastery and we now get all kinds of great visitors passing through and stopping off her for the night, etc. One young man entered the seminary this fall and boy, could I give him a good portion of my Catholic history books. I know I need to go through and send him one a semester - he went to Catholic school through high school and was unaware of the French Revolution, St. John Vianney, etc. I gave him a lecture on CD on the Vendee and he said (honestly) he got very little out of it. He wanted me to tell him the "whole story". Well, some of my books would help him become a better and more knowledgeable priest.
What to do???? Interesting problem.
Blessings,
Stephanie
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SeaStar
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| Posted: Oct 17 2012 at 4:12pm | IP Logged
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OK- this thread is giving me nightmares!
Last night I had a dream that for some reason I had my whole house open as a public yard sale. I had one room with floor to ceiling bookshelves housing books that were not for sale, but people kept taking the books off the shelves and saying, "Look! I found XYZ book. This is great!" They were so happy.
And I would run up and say (or wail): "But the books are not for sale!!"
Hmm... woke up in a sweat. But, pondering this for awhile, I do think it brings home the message that books I am not using can be a blessing for someone else.
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JennGM
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| Posted: Oct 17 2012 at 4:52pm | IP Logged
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I'm not hanging on to everything, and I'm purging quite a bit. It's not that I feel called to save every book!
Melinda, that's a funny dream! I had something in my dream last night about my books and shelves, but I can't recall it all.
I was talking with another local 4Realer this week. Her youngest is junior high age and she has purged over the years. But now she is in a second stage where she is helping out with younger children and wishes she had some of the great picture books and other books that she used to have!
It's a great balance. You don't want to be a hoarder, but you also want to be prudent. Some books would be hard and expensive to replace.
The one area I really want to purge are the board books. I never liked them, because they are so messy!
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Maria Rioux
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Well, Jenn, I don't know how many books you have and whether or not they are actually going to waste on your shelves, but I know we have plenty of the same titles and I think we probably have something like 8,000? books. We live in the country, far enough from our small town to make popping into the library a pain as well as expensive...and the library doesn't even have the books I would want if they were not on our shelves. As our children have grown, I have set aside a starter set for each of them. I'll divvy up our books among our children for the benefit of our grandchildren. We have it all organized, our home is not cluttered...but every room has decent bookshelves. When we took down the stairwell and moved our stairs, we replaced it with a half wall..of, you guessed it, book shelves. :)
I don't think hoarding is healthy, but 24 years of homeschooling tells me we do use these books, just not all of them all the time. I'm looking forward to reading some of them with our sweet little granddaughter....and gifting her mother with a nice little pile. :)
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JennGM
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| Posted: Oct 17 2012 at 5:17pm | IP Logged
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Maria Rioux wrote:
Well, Jenn, I don't know how many books you have and whether or not they are actually going to waste on your shelves, but I know we have plenty of the same titles and I think we probably have something like 8,000? books. We live in the country, far enough from our small town to make popping into the library a pain as well as expensive...and the library doesn't even have the books I would want if they were not on our shelves. As our children have grown, I have set aside a starter set for each of them. I'll divvy up our books among our children for the benefit of our grandchildren. We have it all organized, our home is not cluttered...but every room has decent bookshelves. When we took down the stairwell and moved our stairs, we replaced it with a half wall..of, you guessed it, book shelves. :)
I don't think hoarding is healthy, but 24 years of homeschooling tells me we do use these books, just not all of them all the time. I'm looking forward to reading some of them with our sweet little granddaughter....and gifting her mother with a nice little pile. :)
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Maria, you're getting quite techie this week! Great to see you here! I'm here after a long day and just sitting down while dinner is cooking!
I think what has been hard for me is that my vision of a cozy home is bookshelves everywhere. Dh, not so much the same vision. He estimates I have about as many as you do, but I don't think so, not yet. Maybe I don't WANT to count them.
Do you have a bookcase under the stairs? I've seen pictures of bookshelves in the stairs and along the stairwell wall -- just love that idea!
You are right, we have many of the same titles. I do wish I had all your Dujarie series! I'll try not to be envious. 
I am already trying to save a few duplicate titles for my boys to have. Before my siblings got married I collected all sorts of "domestic church/Liturgical Year" books for them -- Trapp, Newland, Berger, McLoughlin and gave to each of my 6 siblings as a wedding gift.
And my mother did the same as you, Maria. She has saved and shared titles with her children. Those that we would fight over because there is just one copy we look for our own.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Family in Feast and Feria
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Erin
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| Posted: Oct 18 2012 at 3:02pm | IP Logged
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Jenn
I agree so much with all Maria shares  I am fortunate in that I have a storage(shipping) container and for those precious books that I've obtained more than one copy of I've started a grandchildren box. (yes my oldest is only 19 and it could be years before grandchildren ) I'm up to box 6 already, it is a bit of a family joke but I know they will all be pleased when the time comes. With the advent of the ereader it is going to be harder and harder to source printed copies.
I feel confident that you are quite selective and it wouldn't be twaddle that you are agonising over, I'm encouraging you to find creative ways to store. Are your bookshelves deep enough to have double rows? I've done this with some of my chapter books. And go to the ceiling, above my bookcases I've added 2 shelves, we fit so much more. You can see in this photo what I mean (sorry about the blurriness). I purchased a bookcase that we were able to pull apart and the shelves were screwed into the wall. What about at the back of closets? perhaps not in boxes but standing up as on a bookshelf you could fit a row or two behind items. The boxes under beds have already been suggested.
We've always boxed our Christmas/Easter titles and it is with pleasure we see them come out again great suggestion there.
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Erin
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JennGM
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| Posted: Oct 18 2012 at 3:28pm | IP Logged
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I love your bookshelves, especially how they go over the windows!
I've been prudent, but I'm happy to report I've gathered twelve boxes of books to purge (the size of paper boxes)! I've been going up and down stairs with boxes of books. I'm so sore!!!!!! But happy -- my rooms are shaping up and we're almost back to normal, even better than normal!
Dh is happy, too! 
I feel I could still purge some more. The books I rarely touch, the ones that are available at the library, the ones that the children and I didn't like after all.
I like your approach, Stephanie, and it makes sense. One book in, one book out.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Erin
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Dd 8 just told me I need to post new pictures the library looks green (which its not).
Well done glad you don't feel like you're drowning now. Stephanie's ideal is good I've been thinking about it myself.
One detail I find tricky is the books that I/dh loved, that my older children loved, middle and younger can vary.
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Erin
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JennGM
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| Posted: Oct 18 2012 at 3:57pm | IP Logged
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It's just that books trickle in -- some that just are read once, some you "saved" from discard and they aren't any good. I KNEW I needed to purge a few. Cookbooks are one example.
When I get to the bare bones of the rarer and OOP ones, then I'll probably not be getting rid of them. But I think I have some time.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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JennGM
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| Posted: Oct 20 2012 at 8:30am | IP Logged
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There was an article in the WSJ, an excerpt from a new book that will be printed by Joe Queenan. The article is entitled My 6,128 Favorite Books. It's humorous, although I don't agree with all his selections.
But this section rings true with me, and I thought of this thread:
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Books as physical objects matter to me, because they evoke the past. A Métro ticket falls out of a book I bought 40 years ago, and I am transported back to the Rue Saint-Jacques on Sept. 12, 1972, where I am waiting for someone named Annie LeCombe. A telephone message from a friend who died too young falls out of a book, and I find myself back in the Chateau Marmont on a balmy September day in 1995. A note I scribbled to myself in "Homage to Catalonia" in 1973 when I was in Granada reminds me to learn Spanish, which I have not yet done, and to go back to Granada.
None of this will work with a Kindle. People who need to possess the physical copy of a book, not merely an electronic version, believe that the objects themselves are sacred. Some people may find this attitude baffling, arguing that books are merely objects that take up space. This is true, but so are Prague and your kids and the Sistine Chapel. Think it through, bozos.
The world is changing, but I am not changing with it. There is no e-reader or Kindle in my future. My philosophy is simple: Certain things are perfect the way they are. The sky, the Pacific Ocean, procreation and the Goldberg Variations all fit this bill, and so do books. Books are sublimely visceral, emotionally evocative objects that constitute a perfect delivery system.
Electronic books are ideal for people who value the information contained in them, or who have vision problems, or who have clutter issues, or who don't want other people to see that they are reading books about parallel universes where nine-eyed sea serpents and blind marsupials join forces with deaf Valkyries to rescue high-strung albino virgins from the clutches of hermaphrodite centaurs, but they are useless for people engaged in an intense, lifelong love affair with books. Books that we can touch; books that we can smell; books that we can depend on. Books that make us believe, for however short a time, that we shall all live happily ever after. |
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Jennifer G. Miller
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CrunchyMom
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I agree with him, except that I do like e-readers, too. For instance, I recently read a summary edition of Getting Things Done. I read it on a road trip for its content, and I do not foresee having any sort of spiritual relationship with the book or its content. Perfect for keeping on my iPad to read while browsing the web.
So, where he says
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| Electronic books are ideal for people who value the information contained in them, or who have vision problems, or who have clutter issues... |
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I would instead say "E-readers are ideal for books which are valued for the information contained in them."
I also will buy books based on where and how I see myself using it. Will having it on my iPad make it more convenient or present a barrier?
I have to say, my iPad has been the only place I've been able to successfully read anything since my youngest has been born. He's always been a handful to nurse, and holding a book and turning pages was impossible! That doesn't mean I don't ALSO have shelves of books with which I have a relationship.
Anyway, not that you were saying otherwise. I just felt like even though I connected with what he said about books, it still didn't make me think less of my e-reader, yk?
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SeaStar
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I love what this guy is saying, Jenn. So true. A book can be a treasure.
It has got me thinking: I am always crying that I don't have enough room for my books. Well, honestly, there are a multitude of things sitting in my house right now that mean a lot less to me than my books. What can I ditch to make more room to enjoy the books that I love?
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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4Real Forums : Planning and Ordering our Days
Topic: Too Many Books
