New Year, New You, New Books
New Year, New You, Old Books, New Books
Happy New Year! It’s the month when we all start shiny new out-of-the-box resolutions, and come crashing down to the reality of our messy lives about midway through the second week.
One of this year’s trends is the 'Spark Joy' movement of Marie Kondo. Fanatical friends are busy showing off drawers of intricately folded clothes and boasting about the amount of useless stuff they have expressed their gratitude to, before letting it go to the charity shop or the tip.
Marie Kondo is a tiny bundle of excited Japanese order who genuinely relishes folding T-shirts. Her eyes light up when she spies clutter and she obviously really enjoys taking on disordered houses, but it’s her stance on books that’s dividing people. Most book lovers are firmly on the side of ‘what the hell do you think you’re doing?’. Die-hard Kondo fans see all books as wasted space. I think even the most determined Book Hoarder can actually learn something from her approach. Welcome to:
The Book Hoarder’s Guide to Sparking Joy While Keeping a Large Library
Step one: Marie Kondo asks that you pile up all your books in one place so that you can fully assess the problem .
Ok. You can stop laughing there at the back. I realise this is going to be impossible. However it’s probably worth assessing your books by genre at least - or you may not realise you have five copies of the same book in five different places.
Step two: Kondo taps the books in a sparkling fairy like way to ‘wake up their energy’.
Haven’t I already told you to stop laughing? However this does lead on to a worthwhile point. A book on a shelf that you’ve stopped seeing or appreciating is - at best - in suspended animation. It’s only by taking it out and really looking at it that you can see what potential it has and what future it deserves. For the Book Hoarder version, you could at least shake the dust off them.
Step three: Kondo would now like you to thank the books for their service and only keep those that ‘spark joy’, giving you a warm feeling of enjoyment when you look at them or hug them.
Book lovers everywhere have exploded into a flurry of articles explaining patiently and passionately that ‘sparking joy’ is not necessarily the main point of a book. Books can unsettle, books can be there just in case, books can be kept for potential grandchildren, books can need re-reading, books can just...be there for us when we need them - and how do we know when we’re going to need them?
I believe all of that and I have a house full of books to prove it. BUT... come on, admit it. Not all the books you have deserve the space they take up, and in fact some may deserve a better reader than you.
Our vital Book Hoarder Step Three is identifying “Heart Sink” books. If you stop to think about it, there are books that can make you feel bad just by looking at their covers. They’re the book you borrowed from a friend you’re no longer in touch with, the book that you meant to read to improve yourself but you secretly suspect is really boring, the book someone gave you that just isn’t your thing. They. Can. Go. Letting go of these books will not revoke your Book Hoarder passport.
Book Hoarder Step Four is for the “Meh” books. They were ok-ish. You read them once. You don’t intend to re-read them. You don’t really want to lend them to anyone. They’re perfectly FINE books but they’re just not - dare I say it - sparking…
The books from Steps Three and Four that you are prepared to get rid of deserve better than a fate of Death By Dust. By passing them on to a charity shop or local library, there’s every chance someone will pounce on them with glee and make them part of their treasured collection.
Step Five is optional but is a great way to spend a day (and get out of other household chores): Organising Your Books - By colour, by purchase date, by genre, by length of time they take to read, by alphabetical order by author, or even by Dewey Decimal System. Ignore all advice and opinions. This is purely for you.
And finally, Book Hoarder Step Six is the Hidden Treasure. Once you’ve shuffled all your books around, set free the books that don’t deserve you, and had a lovely reorganisation, time to settle down with that lovely pile of ‘I forgot I had those!’.