Collecting books

 This post is for people who collect books. I used to collect books for as long as I can remember. The first time was when I was in elementary school in Podmocani, Macedonia. They were clearing the basement of an old school, and they threw away many books in the river in front of my house. I picked up whatever I could salvage. It continued when I emigrated to America.

For a summer I worked as a janitor in a public library on Staten Island, and I picked up whatever books they were throwing away. While in college, I used to frequent a two story used bookstore in Manhattan, somewhere in the West 20's. I used to shop with a shopping cart, and sometimes I had to carry home 20-30 pound of books in shopping bags. Then I finished college, got my Doctorate degree and my first job at Auburn University.

My former father-in-law moved all my books in a truck from Ohio to Alabama. I got my office and I manage somehow to squeeze all of my +5000 books in it (BTW, I had really read all of them through the years). Then I retired, and I'm thinking, what am I to do with all these books?

Which brings me to my point. I'm watching CNN and their reports on what's going on in Ukraine. And every once in a while they interview scholars and specialist for comments on the situation. Almost exclusively the interview is conducted from their home, and almost exclusively they sit somewhere in a library in their home, with endless shelves of books in the background. I imagine the point of this is to show that they must be very smart people if they have read all those books, and therefore the viewer should trust their opinion.

Which brings me to my next point. Other than to show off how smart a person is, what exactly is the point of keeping a huge library of books that one has already read once? I have read "War and Peace" twice, once in undergraduate and once in graduate school. What is the chance that I will ever have time to read it again, and why would I? And if it's a choice between re-reading "War and Peace" for a third time, or a book that I have never read before, isn't it obvious that I would choose the latter?

So, then, what would be the point of keeping that book on my shelf till I die, unless I just want to impress visitors at my home, or maybe for a possible future interview on CNN (NOT!), to show off how smart I am. So, long ago I decided to get rid of most of my books, except for a couple hundred of them. Some I sold, and most I simply gave away.

The beauty of books, clothing and some other items is that they always have some value for someone. Why keep a book that you will never read again, or a piece of clothing that you will never wear again? That item has real value to someone who doesn't have it. Just give it away instead of keeping it on a shelf or in the closet. Sure, currently I do keep some books that I do re-read, sometimes three or four times, mostly poetry, philosophy, history, literary theory, and many how-to books on cooking, winemaking, web programming and raising backyard chickens (really!).