Weeding out books challenge

Next week I have lined up reviews of two books, a western and a horror—my first book reviews this year—as well as reviews of short stories that I'm reading with great vigour than I did last year. My goal is to read at least six books per month, two every ten days. Anything more is a bonus. So far I'm nearly through with three books, the third being a vintage mystery. I also plan to read a lot of short stories in nearly every genre though I won't be reviewing every one of them.

Saturday morning, I cleaned my primary bookshelf with the chief purpose of weeding out books I'd, and hadn't, read, and ensuring that no termites or silverfish were feeding on the pages and bindings. Fortunately, there weren't any. The twenty books I got rid of included a few that belonged to me, such as three very old, tattered, and yellowed Carter Brown paperbacks (unread), Of Mice and Men and Cannery Row, and The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck (read), India: A Mission Mutinies Now by V.S. Naipaul (read), Vultures in the Sun by Brian Garfield (read and reviewed), Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (read), and Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (read).

I wanted to dispose of more books in my collection but every time I picked up one, to toss it into the giveaway bag, I heard myself saying, “Next time,” and back it went on the shelf. Weeding out books is as ambitious as a reading challenge. In fact, reading books is less of a headache than getting rid of them. It’s like orphaning the books. A certain level of detachment is required to do that.

This year, however, I do want to get rid of more books than I did last year, which means I'll be reading that much more.

Nowadays I seldom give away books as I rarely come across people who read. This leaves me with two choices: sell them to used bookstores or to old paper marts or scrap dealers, known as raddiwallahs. Selling your books to either is the literary equivalent of a criminal offence: in the first, they’ll be strewn around, collect dust, and whatnot; in the second, they’ll be shredded and recycled into paper cups or toilet paper. 

A final word: a book is a man’s second best friend. Last evening, I attended a conference where some half-a-dozen central (federal) ministers spoke one after another. Their speeches were long and tedious. Rather than fall asleep, I opened my book (the western I mentioned above), and read a few more pages. It was time well spent.