Rehoming books

[alicebentley]

Twenty years ago, when we moved from Chicago to Vashon, we had too little time, and enough money, that instead of weeding our collection of books (and the remnants of the bookstore) we shipped everything here.
I estimate it was about 15,000 volumes.
In 2012 we were going through a rough patch, and just the thought of having to move with So Much Stuff was panic-inducing. So I started making runs to used book stores, getting tables at conventions where I priced everything to move move move ($1 each was common), and had probably dropped to about 4,000 or so books before I ran out of energy (and panic).
Nowadays we are much more likely to buy our new books as ebooks - and while there's a core of several hundred books I will likely always keep, I am ready to find new homes for much of what's here.

So I applied for a dealer table at Norwescon. It would be my first local outing since the pandemic started, but one gets fairly good distancing by staying behind a table, and I love the bookseller experience of connecting people with books.

But they turned me down.

Faced with listing them one by one on some For Sale site (bleh) I whined about this on FB, where some folks said they would be interested in seeing a list, and one local bookseller said he'd come take a look.

I'll get around to doing it, but that table would have been nice.

Comments

[minnehaha]

What the honest f*ck?!

WHY did they turn you down? Enough booksellers and not enough anime figurines?

K.

[alicebentley]

I try not to speculate too much, it's easy to invent depressing conclusions.
I know all too well that wrangling a dealers room can lead to some tough choices, and the fact that I didn't keep up with the convention-running game after we moved here means that none of those people know me. If I were to go to the convention (I'm not) I would get a more solid feel for what they fill their room with. But it is, indeed, their room. And they might not even mind missing out on the great stuff I would have been offering.

[minnehaha]

Yeah, looking over the room is going to be crucial to understanding how to get into it. I am sorry it's unclear and that can appear dire. I know how hard it can be to avoid those conclusions.

K.

[pameladean]

Well pfui, your table sounds like a great addition to a dealers room, but I guess they have other ideas.

We still have the 15,000 books, or the four-person equivalent. I have (well mostly) stopped buying paper books because there is nowhere to put them. We lack a panic-inducing event to provide the impetus for culling. I will start a conversation: "We don't really need ANY Piers Anthony, do we?" "Welllll, maybe just X." "And Y." "No Xanth!" "Maybe the first three?" and it all goes to pieces.

I won't even get started on the multiple editions of LoTR and how the experience of reading the one-volume edition with its Bible-paper pages is different from reading my battered paperbacks, one of which got dropped in the bathtub.

P.

[alicebentley]

I think it would have been great for both sides, but it's not gonna happen so Oh Well.

I can make a great case for keeping each and every one of the too many books we have. One tactic that helped me a lot was when we were moving one large set of bookcases from one room to another, and once I had them properly fastened to the wall I went through the stacks moving in The Most Important Books first. That way I wasn't having to say - you, you're going. I was saying - you, you're staying.

[minnehaha]

Move, bring 20% of the books, allow nothing that cannot be shelved.

K. [BT, DT]

[pameladean]

Oh yes, I can see that moving bookshelves could work very well in that way.

If we ever want to paint the library or get rid of the truly awful carpet, we would have to pack up all the books (ARGH) and move the shelves out. Putting things back would then be the right time to keep only some things. Well, we'll see.

I feel vengeful about a handful of books, but to most, you're right, I don't want to say, "You're going."

P.

[minnehaha]

LOTS of my books have been dropped in the bathtub.

K. [this is because I fall asleep and they fall in]

[pameladean]

Many of mine had at one time; I have, oh, twenty or thirty with that telltale indented spine and huge spray of water-swollen pages. But I stopped taking baths at some point, going over to showers, and read where I didn't always have cold shoulders.

I don't think I've ever been relaxed enough in the bath to fall asleep unless I was ill. It sounds very nice.

P.

[minnehaha]

I can barely stay awake in the tub at all. And I never put so much water that there is danger of slipping under. Nor do I hold my phone in the tub.

K.

[alicebentley]

We only have a shower available here, so reading in the bath hasn't been an option.