I buy from charity shops; I'm rarely a giver, a passer-on type book-reader. I keep 'em all. Not unless I really disliked a read. In which case, I'd bag it up & leave it on a bus, a train, a bench on the Meadows. One woman's doom is another woman's escapism.
I had a dream of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Of sliding ladders and coffee tables and comfy chairs. Of my very own library space with books going back to childhood & the ones I'd managed to retain from then.
The dream diminished about 7am this morning in the name of self-storage and Going Away. Hence this post is being written as a Holding Place to list all that I'm parting with (to Oxfam/friends over Amazon/eBay) so that one day when I'm less nomadic, I can rebuild and restructure again. Some of them I may well be happy with having read once, others I will want to own again & have in my possession. Frustratingly, some of them I've still not yet got round to* but this way I may yet still get there, one day.
Although I feel to be parting with a lot, it's actually what I'm holding onto, what I don't want to Second Copy - aside my obvious favourites - which feels more telling: Drina Ballerina (the complete series), my C.19th US Writing & Culture texts, Riverside Chaucer...
Here we are then.
The Ones Which Got Away: