How many books do you need?

Jane wore a different dress every day. #notfair

I love books and for years I collected them, although maybe hoarded is the more honest term. I am a voracious reader, a description I once read in a book and have ever since tried to casually work into a sentence describing my own reading proclivity — another word gleaned from a book  — and here I am: using these words in sentences. Books really do Expand Your Mind.

Truthfully, I often like books better than I like people, especially when people insist on talking while I'm reading, like when they want to know if I'm ready for dessert or if I'm ready to leave the kids' baseball game that ended 15 minutes ago and the kids are hungry. Jeez. When my kids were little we had a robust collection of books so they could Learn Stuff and be Encouraged To Read and Grow Up As Readers. I read to them every night of their lives, even way after they could read on their own, and getting into bed every night to read for a few hours myself was a highlight (sometimes the highlight) of my day.

But enough is enough.

Even better is Mary Poppins's pronouncement that "Enough is as good as a feast". 

During my three-year purging odyssey, when I got rid of 75% of what we had collected in our 23-year sojourn into suburban life, I sold or donated or forced on friends no fewer, and probably way more than,  800 books. I don't miss a one. I still have my enough is as good as a feast selection because I kept a hundred or so of the books that would have ripped out my soul to get rid of. And, I always have the library for more.

Why get rid of books? Well, (1.) they take up a lot of space and require shelving which also takes up a lot of space; (2.) you have to move them every time you paint, which I do way too often to be healthy; (3.) they collect dust and require dusting, which I do much less frequently than I paint; (4.) they're just more stuff, which is what I was working so hard to eliminate; and (5.) I only got rid of the ones I wasn't reading and didn't treasure.

How many books to keep? Only those that you treasure way deep down in your soul. Deep deep down. You'll know the ones. Pack up the rest and sell, donate to charity, or give to the library. As always, move them straight to your car. Then come back in and revel in the openness of your shelves, the white space in the room, and the sense of peace that comes with eliminating the unessential and making room for the treasures. You will enjoy your books more. I promise.
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