Why I chose to give away my books

Each one of us has a unique relationship with books. We all have anecdotes and stories to tell about the books we buy, collect, read, hoard, and never read. Then, one day, something—I don't know if it's age, wisdom, or common sense—prompts us to do what once seemed unthinkable: downsize our collection. Give away books we have been holding on to for years. Free up space on shelves, in cabinets, and up in the loft. And start again, one book at a time.

At least, that was my plan.

I owned very few books in my youth, the years between 14 and 25 when I read the most books. In those days, I could finish a novel in two or three sittings, sometimes in half a day, and start another by night. I borrowed books from private circulating libraries, the British Council Library and the American Library. 

Then, somewhere down the years, career and family life took precedence. I stopped going to libraries because of the distance and lack of time, and instead started buying books—more than I could read. Not that anyone or anything stopped me from reading as I did before. Yet, somehow, I never quite read with the same intensity again.

Over the next three decades, I accumulated so many books that several of my mysteries, thrillers and westerns followed me to every new place of work. They sat quietly in office desks and cabinets, seldom getting a chance to tell me their stories. Then came the comforts and distractions of the tech age, and my goal of reading a certain number of books and short stories every month—in other words, reducing my TBR pile—went out the window.

About a year after the onset of the pandemic, I decided enough was enough. We were in the middle of a home renovation when I took stock of my collection and removed nearly two hundred books. I eventually gave them away to anyone who was interested or sold them to footpath booksellers at throwaway prices. 

I had little choice. Some of those books had remained unread for years. My logic was simple: if I hadn't read them by then, I sure as hell wasn't going to read them now. Fortunately, most of the books I weeded out were secondhand and didn’t cost a lot of money, though the parting did hurt for a while.

Now I have fewer than a hundred books, mostly paperbacks by some of my favourite authors and a small collection of nonfiction. Among them are a dozen books on the craft of writing by seasoned writers such as Stephen King, Francine Prose, Ray Bradbury, Anne Lamott, Benjamin Dreyer, Annie Dillard, and Bill Bryson. These are the books I return to often. They are my writing companions, offering lessons in craft, sharing the wisdom of experience, and helping me become a better reader and writer.

Over the past three years, I have made up for the "loss" of my books by buying ebooks or downloading them from public-domain and online libraries. I read them on my Kindle and Samsung tablet. I still buy paper books, of course, but no more than half a dozen a year. Most come from Amazon, second-hand booksellers, and book fairs, depending on what I happen to find.

The thing about de-cluttering books, to borrow a phrase from George Bernard Shaw in another context, is the illusion that it has taken place. No matter how many books we discard, there are always plenty around the place. I guess the only way to pare down our collections is to read books as soon as we buy them.