I have this recurring fear of contracting some lingering but
not too serious malady that keeps me in the hospital and on rehabilitation for
several weeks. A ruptured appendix might do it. The main question
beyond my
survival will be:
Do I have enough literature and reading material to keep me going through this time of recuperation?
As a result, I have a lot of books, both physical and electronic, lying around.
I have another fear, too. I relates to the popular television show Hoarders. You crazed book readers know what I mean.
So yesterday I spent several hours with Mrs. WhatIfYouCouldNotFail.com as we cleaned up the garage. To be honest, my distaff cleaned the garage. I sorted books while my appendix twitched like a pyromanic on the Fourth of July.
Some of the books I put in the donate file were no-brainers:
- I have two copies of She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb. Haven’t read it once yet, so I am surely not reading it twice.
- I have this policy that I don’t read any books about the Internet or social media. In the time it took to write them, everything changed. If I acquired any such tomes, they are gone.
- Likewise, I have this policy about non-fiction relating to current events—anything previous to the current presidential administration is not getting read. A whole new crop of lies has been invented about those topics. Out it goes.
Beyond that, it’s kind of a hit and miss thing.
- I love Lawrence Block novels, especially the Matthew Scudder series and the Hit Man series. I can’t toss them, almost all of which are in paperback. Chances are, though, that I am unlikely to read them. The same is true for Walter Mosley. Gotta keep those.
- Grisham can probably go. Not going to read those twice.
- On the other hand, I might actually read my collection of books on Russian history. It could happen.
- I have several books—maybe more than several—by historical fiction authors, but after reading one from the group, I realize I don’t care for their style. Those could go.
There are two boxes of books I am donating to the Prison Library Project in Claremont. If I really tried, I could come up with a third one. Maybe before this three-day weekend is over.
What I should do is watch another episode of Hoarders. That should freak me out sufficiently.
See ya’ later.
WhatIfYouCouldNotFail.com by Tim Sunderland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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