Marilyn Thiele
Ah…January. It’s too cold to work in the garden, my great excuse for avoiding other tasks which are less appealing. January is time to take stock – or get rid of stock, both at the bookstore and at home. Some books just have to go; there is no more space.
In his book Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction Tom Raabe has a questionnaire to help the reader determine the extent to which his or her life is being affected by the buying and hoarding of books. (“When you go to a bookstore after work, thus arriving home late at night, do you lie about where you have been, telling your spouse you were at a bar?”). Raabe then focuses on more specifics about just how deeply one’s life has been affected by the addiction:
Your book buying has been halted by the barrier that eventually stops all book buying: lack of storage space. How do you react to this problem?
(a) You sell some of the books or give them away.
(b) You jettison existing space takers, like furniture and appliances.
(c) You acquire additional space: that is you buy or rent houses, build annexes, rent storage space.
I face these choices both personally and professionally. My two connected bookstores, Twice Told Tales and The Moonstone Mystery Book Store offer both used and new books. Judicious (I hope!) buying decisions and the ability to return unsold items keep the new book stock somewhat under control. For the used books, the choices become more difficult. Of course, the preferred option within (a) above is selling. But between my weak moments of accepting books as “trade-ins” that appeal to me but few others, and my forays into book sales (see Raabe’s book for the dangers lurking here), shelf and storage space frequently become problematic. In addition, since the closing of Borders has left my store as the only bookstore within 10 miles, I have greatly expanded my stock of new books at the expense of space for the older treasures.
I have the good fortune to have an arrangement with the Edna Mahan Correctional Institution, the only women’s prison in New Jersey, which allows me to donate to their very needy library. For those books inappropriate for the incarcerated (e.g., cookbooks), there is our local Friends of the Library book sale. Thus I am not faced with the distasteful prospect of actually throwing a book away. I have also taken option (c) in the form of rented storage space and been tempted by one of the smaller apartments located above the store, but this choice becomes expensive. Thus, the necessity of “weeding out.”
I am a firm believer that there is a buyer for every book. Since I have not yet tried selling on-line, a time commitment that seems too much while maintaining a retail store, I have to anticipate which books will actually find buyers in Flemington, New Jersey. Who knew that just after my last clean-out Taylor Caldwell and Irving Wallace would develop new fans? Then there is the sentimentality problem. The books I loved years ago may or may not attract today’s readers. Worse yet, there are all the books I always wanted to read, but haven’t had time. Maybe I should keep an extra copy, just in case days grow to 48 hours or I learn to function without sleep.
Finally, there comes the day when there are no other options. I brutally cull the shelves, boxing up the dated, the “way too many copies,” the flash-in-the-pan hits. I promise myself that I will not go back and second-guess once the boxes are sealed. I am thankful that publishers have reissued some out-of-print classics so that I no longer feel the need to hold on to the old editions. And I revel in the extra space (alas, soon to disappear).
During this process, I yield to the temptation to set aside some of the books for myself. But the problem at home is even worse. I won’t even discuss the shelving (and floor) in my office, the first stop for those books I know I’m going to read someday. I have speculated that both books and coat hangers reproduce with abandon in the dark closets and corners where they live. When my son’s girlfriend came to visit last week, I discovered two stacks of books in a corner of the guest room; surely I did not put them there.
If Cicero was right (“A room without books is like a body without a soul”), the only soulless part of our house is the basement, damp and prone to New Jersey flooding and thus a prohibited venue for books. Attempts at organization have yielded some improvement; I really don’t need three copies of the same book. (See Raabe’s book for details on this aspect of the addiction.) Some success at convincing my husband that books are very stylish decorating accessories has yielded more shelves. (“Really? The dining room?”). But when redecorating the living room I was unsuccessful in convincing him that chairs and sofas were unnecessary if bookshelves could fill the space. (See choice (b) above.)
After the labor and emotional trauma of parting with books at the store, the task at home is too overwhelming. Maybe I’ll do this in February, another indoor month. And so someday you will see me in an episode of “Hoarding: Buried Alive,” not crushed by newspapers stacked to the ceiling, but books. What a way to go!
