Anyone with a library of some size understands this dilemma: No matter how many built-in shelves, ply-board units or cardboard boxes, there's never enough storage for that burgeoning biblioteca.
We live in a tiny house and I have books squirrled away in more places than yarn. There are books on the tiny shelves underneath my desk, in knitting bags, the kitchen, under the coffee table, tucked into the crawl space, stored in boxes and lining the walls of the basement. There are books scattered on every surface of my office, in the bedroom, and, predictably, the bathroom.
This weekend, Mitch moved a steel shelving unit into the basement to enhance our storage options. This required removing the dusty tomes from another groaning bookshelf and shuffling everything around in our crowded spider-filled "garden level." We used this as an opportunity to cull, not the easiest exercise for someone like me who hangs onto books like they were lower teeth.
Kant stayed. Scott Turow...auf wiedersehn. Gatsby's in. Peggy Noonan...out. Simone de Beauvoir, oui. Megatrends 2000, no. American Colonia Homes? Sorry, no room at the inn. Intro to Fortran? History. Deborah Tannen's You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation? Gone. (Last night notwithstanding, if we don't have the marital communication thing down after almost 20 years, we'd need more than Deborah Tannen.)
All in all three boxes of books found their way into the Goodwill pile.
What did I do after that salutary chore? Bought Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day at the brand-new independent bookstore walking distance from our house...