BOOK PURGE

I'm not generally attached to things, except when it comes to art. Books, comics, CDs, and the like. I used to think I should hang on to all of it because it could come in handy in the future...though what for was always vague. I did get rid of all of my comics (though not my trades) a couple years ago and I will take books off the shelves from time to time, donating them to the library.

This past week has been dedicated in part to clearing out my wife's grandmother's apartment; she was recently in the hospital and has had to move to a facility where she has a smaller place and assisted living. I only did some of the work, staying home with our son on some of the days where my wife went over to work on the place. On Saturday there was a subdivision-wide garage sale where the apartment is and we managed to get rid of quite a bit of stuff.

Last June I helped my dad clear out his mom's place and then helped with my other grandma's place when she passed away in October. I've seen how much stuff people can accumulate and how much work it is to sort through all of it. That's allowed me to be a bit more diligent in what I choose to keep around (our small house can only hold so much too). When it was time to do a book purge a few days ago I dug a little deeper than I normally would...and yes, it could have been more but getting rid of books is hard for me. I definitely took a step, getting rid of things I knew I would never read again even if I enjoyed it. Here's the list....

Stephen Baxter/Manifold: Time
Terry Bisson/The Pickup Artist
Emily Bronte/Wuthering Heights
Bryan Charles/Grab On to Me Tightly As If I Knew the Way
Quinn Dalton/Bulletproof Girl
Nick Hornby ed./Da Capo Best Music Writing 2001
Dean Monti/The Sweep of the Second Hand
John Updike/Brazil
John Updike/Memories of the Ford Administration
John Updike/Pigeon Feathers
John Updike/Odd Jobs
D.B. Weiss/Lucky Wander Boy

And as I was rearranging the shelves, I made a discovery - I hadn't accounted for one of the books I've read this year, River of Gods by Ian McDonald. That means I'm still behind but not quite as bad as I'd thought. Yay me.