New year clear-out

It being the new year and all (new decade, as the media would have us believe), I decided it was time to do a bit of a clean-out.

I’ve been culling clothes I haven’t worn for years, as well as ones that I can’t hold up without suspenders. We’re talking several mid-sized moving cartons of those.

There’s also a lot of linens and kitchenware. Again—stuff I haven’t used since long before I moved West.

But also books. Went through the collection & culled about 200-250. While 250 is about 5% of the whole, it did open space for any volumes I find I can't live without in 2010.

The fiction was the easiest; a lot of stuff I’m not going to either read or reread—The Raj Quartet, Conrad, Tolstoy, Miller’s Tropics, Twain, even Joe Wambaugh. To tell you the truth, it doesn't really hurt to let go of fiction; it represents less than 25% of my collection anyhow.

Also, I took a machete to my detective fiction, which is a bit of a first. Cleared out PD James, Reginald Hill, Elizabeth George and some others. Kept Allingham, Christie, Marsh, Crispin, Sayers, Tey and Hillerman. Those I can read again.

A bunch of business and technology went too, including my C programming texts. Does anyone even use C anymore?

I culled all the museum art books I got for being a member of the Smithsonian; but kept all the photography, fashion, architecture and arts books.

Several cookery books went, although I couldn’t part with Julia Child, the Great Meals in Minutes series (even the “minutes” is a gross underestimate of the actual time required) or the books from World War II.

In fact, the one category I couldn’t touch was history—four bookcases of those, and every one absolutely necessary. A girl’s gotta know her limitations.

If you’re thinking about thinning your collection, here are some suggestions from those with strong connections to books. I read them after I was done updating my inventory, but they may prove helpful to you.

Now my problem is finding a charity here that will actually come out to collect donations instead of expecting you to deliver to them.