Tonight I decided that it was time to reorganize the bookcases in my room. I have two cases, seven shelves total. Over the years as the shelves have filled up and stacks began to grow around my room, I've had to cull the collection and put boxes into storage, and this is another one of those times. I'm hoping that reorganizing my books and putting some into storage will help my room look less cluttered, and will get old books that I have no intention of rereading out of the way.
I have at least two, maybe three large boxes full of books in the attic at home, in addition to the books in my room and some on a case in the basement. They date back through elementary, middle, and high school, and I can only imagine how many boxes I would have if I actually owned all of the books that I got from the library over the years. As I was growing up, I always imagined having my own home full of bookcases and shelves, covered in all of the books that I had read throughout my life. It was a cute idea in theory, but when I'm 30 years old and have my own home, am I really going to want a bookcase full of all of the books that I read in middle school? Probably not. And yet, I can't bring myself to get rid of (donate - I don't think I could ever throw away a book even if I hated it) any of them. I always thought that I would keep all of my old books and then my kids could read them, when and if I had kids. But when I have kids in 10 years, there will be new books. Mine will be out of date, with old technology and unfamiliar slang. The Little House books will always be classics, and I'm sure I'll try to persuade my kids to read all 7,000 of the Redwall books, but for the most part they will probably want to pick out their own modern books over my old dusty ones from the attic. It almost makes me sad, but at the same time just because my kids may not (or may - I can't predict the future) want to read my books doesn't mean that no one will. Perhaps when I move into my own house, I'll sort through my old boxes, pick out the books that were special to me, and donate the rest.
As far as specifics go, I don't know how much people say that what you read represents who you are, but I have a lot of fantasy, classics, and historical novels, in addition to stacks of modern YA lit. Yes, I have a few vampire books (but I gave my copies of the Twilight saga to my little sister when I was in high school - give me a break, they came out when I was 12!), in the same stack as Redwall and Lord of the Rings, and right next to The Historian, All the King's Men, and 1984. I have Jane Austen and Neil Gaiman, J.K. Rowling and Sarah Dessen. John Green will always have a place on my shelf, and John Steinbeck can stay at the local library. I have a lot of books that I have yet to read, that I got when I was younger and could never quite get into but that look pretty appealing now a few years later. Poetry, Edgar Allan Poe collections, short story anthologies. If you put it in my hands, I will probably read it.
I've always enjoyed going through my books, and spending tomorrow organizing them is just what I need after spending most of last night writing a paper. I'm looking forward to a new system of organization, and to making a reading list for the rest of the year.
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