musing on books

Books. I've long been a collector of books, from way back, when I had money from birthdays and Christmas, my first stop was the bookstore. I'd spend hours choosing the books I wanted to buy because hey, money was finite, and I preferred value for my dough. I wanted books I could reread.

And now, I'm realizing that as valuable as I find books, and love them (hey, I used to MAKE books in school and for my own projects-real ones, sewn and glued and with covers and everything), they are my own personal clutter. I think it's probably a blessing that two basements, in different houses at different times, zorched a lot of my book collection. Many of those were hardcover specials from Borders or Barnes&Noble that my dad gave me that were actually set in type that was unreadable, or that I'd never really read.

Now I've been going through my paperback collection-there's more in the garage, I think, but I may have to toss those out. They may have mildewed or been nibbled on by silverfish after eight or nine years of being boxed up. A lot of those are my old Heinlein collection and Darkover collection--and think about wow, what a huge chasm between those two writers! Cripes.

I go to a site called Unclutterer, and sure enough, it's true; the less stuff you have weighing you down, the better you feel.