Day #18 of 30 Day Minimalist Challenge

My wife reads more than anyone  that I know, at least a book a week, often two. Unfortunately she also brings home more books than anyone too, perhaps because she volunteers in a very cool, pay what you want, charity bookshop. So we have literally hundreds of books cluttering up the house. I counted over 100 in our bedroom and more than 300 in the spare room before I gave up. In short, she loves books. They are important to her and an important part of how she sees herself.

So I am not going to ask her to get rid of her books.

Instead I thought that I would just start by thinning out my own books. I must confess that I have a number of hardback books that I paid good money for that I have been going to read for a long time, some of them since the 90s... The thought of getting rid of these irks me. It means that I have wasted my money. It means that they have served no purpose. The truth though is that if I haven't read that biography of Gore Vidal in the last 20 years then I'm probably not going to read it in the next 20. It is a sunk cost and I just need to let it go.

Anything that I genuinely think I will read in the next 6 months I'm keeping, along with the few books that were signed to me. Everything else is on the way out, yes even my signed John Updike books. I spent a fair bit of money collecting those but they are currently in a box in the loft which is probably a pretty good sign that they are not adding value to my life!

So for Day 18 of the 30 day challenge, a selection of books. All of these were stacked up by the side of the bed in a tottering tower of literature. If they were spread out you would get a pretty fair representation of me; novels, comedy, self-improvement, music, business etc.

Day 18 - Books from the Bedroom

Of course all these books are going to the charity bookshop where my wife works and you know what? She has just added a couple of her own to the pile!