# Are books sacred to you? What makes throwing them away such a sin? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 21, 2008, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-books-sacred-to-you-what-makes-throwing-them-away-such-a-sin/446281 "2008-04-21T19:13:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![El\_DeLuxo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_deluxo/32/9043_2.png) [@El\_DeLuxo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_DeLuxo)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-books-sacred-to-you-what-makes-throwing-them-away-such-a-sin/446281/61 "2008-04-24T21:20:32Z")
[QUOTE=fusoya] Inspired by [THIS](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=464795) thread, which I decided not to hijack but start a new subject. Time and time again I keep hearing it. “NEVER throw away a book!” … “I keep every book I’ve ever bought, even if I have no intention of ever reading it again”… “even if you thought it was shitty, someone else will love it” … and this is just my immediate family. [/QUOTE] The last of those statements is the one I agree with wholeheartedly. I keep a lot of my books, but the ones that I don’t keep, I do try to get out into the flow of things for someone else to have. Because there\* is \*someone out there who would like to read that book, and maybe hasn’t found it yet or couldn’t afford to buy it. > [@](#): > > I seriously need to clear out a ton of my books for both clutter-proofing my apartment and to clear up some shelf space. Over the next couple days, I am going to throw out probably half of my book collection. I’d estimate I have about 1000 books, 90% of them I haven’t touched in the last 5 years. There’s already a thread going about what to do with them, but this is the IMHO question - what is the big deal about throwing away books? To me it’s, well, yeah – one doesn’t just toss books, because _they’re books,_ which I suppose I’ve got a certain mystical (or _irrational_, if someone wanted to be rude about it) respect for. The written and printed word --these lines and curves drawn on a flat surface become words - sounds! images! stories! when we look on them! – is some serious mojo if you ask me, the first and best big, magical thing humans ever got accomplished. Books are that mojo in a form one can see and touch and hold in one’s hands and throw across the room, so it behooves us to treat them a bit more carefully than dustpans, say, or paint rollers. Besides which, there\* is \*always that person who hasn’t had access to that book yet, and it’s no good wasting useful things if you can avoid it. > [@](#): > > Keep in mind I’m not talking about rare or irreplaceable books. I’m talking about paperback, and occasionally hardcover books which can easily be found new or used. I’m sure there’s no shortage of Piers Anthony or Robert Jordan books to go around. I would even consider leaving a box in front of the local library and running away, except I live in a Polish neighborhood which doesn’t even stock english books (plus, as mentioned in the thread I referenced, THEY throw most of their donated books away too). So you take them to a thrift store…or a homeless shelter…or an old folks’ home. The Greyhound station, maybe --there’s nothing like a good read to make a long, draggy-ass bus ride a little less tedious, you know?. Hell, I’m not above filling a box with raggedy paperbacks or similar no-resale-value literature, writing **FREE BOOKS!!!** on the box with a felt-tip, and leaving the whole shebang in a laundrymat or on top of a newspaper box. People do that fairly often in the Bay Area, and you’d best believe if I see a pile of cast-off books for the taking I will stop and look them over, and I’m far from the only one who’ll do so. This guerilla give-away is _much_ preferable to throwing books away, like they were empty soup cans or dead lightbulbs or busted-up athletic shoes or something. > [@](#): > > If I were to throw them all into a clear recycling bag and leave for the garbageman, am I committing a mortal sin? Of course not – there’s no such thing as a mortal sin. But you _would_ be letting something nice go to waste, when there are better ways to solve your problem. > [@](#): > > If so, why? How is throwing a book away any different from throwing away a magazine, newspaper, or even a box of cereal? Again: There are lots and lots of people around who would be real glad to have some free or Goodwill-priced books made available to them, and you’ve got a shitload of books you have no space for – see how nicely those circumstances balance each other out? You can unclutter your space and give some folks a lot of pleasure at the same time! PS: Personally, I wouldn’t throw that box of cereal away, either, unless there was actually something wrong with it. There’s always somebody around swho’s hungry. ---
**Author:** ![fusoya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecccb3/32.png) [@fusoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fusoya)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-books-sacred-to-you-what-makes-throwing-them-away-such-a-sin/446281/62 "2008-04-24T23:07:22Z")
Here is the first set that is going. Any NYC dopers who want to pick any of them up in Brooklyn (or maybe Manhattan if it won’t be too much trouble for me), let me know. I’d rather not have to deal with shipping them, unless someone wants a bunch of them and can reimburse me for the shipping costs Fiction Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy Richard Adams - Watership Down Kevin Anderson - Star Wars: Dark Apprentice Kevin Anderson - Star Wars: Jedi Search Bill Amead - Wildly Foxtrot (large PB) William Peter Blatty - The Exorcist Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles Terry Brooks - The Sword of Shannara Terry Brooks - Magic Kingdom For Sale Arthur Clarke - 2001 Arthur Clarke - 2050 Michael Crichton - Next (HC-1st) Brian Daley - Star Wars: The Han Solo Adventures James Garner - Politically Correct Bedtime Stories (HC) James Garner - Once Upon a More Enlightened Time (HC) Thomas Harris - Hannibal Rising (HC-1st) Thomas Harris - Red Dragon BB Hiller - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (movie novelization) BB Hiller - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (movie novelization) Homer - The Iliad (translated by Robert Fitzgerald, HC missing dust jacket) Homer - The Odyssey (translated by Robert Fitzgerald, HC missing dust jacket) Brian Jacques - Redwall Brian Jacques - Mattimeo Robert Jordan - The Eye of the World Robert Jordan - The Dragon Reborn Robert Jordan - The Great Hunt Robert Jordan - Lord of Chaos Robert Jordan - The Fires of Heaven Stephen King - The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Stephen King - The Eyes of the Dragon CS Lewis - The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe CS Lewis - Prince Caspian Steve Perry - Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (HC-1st) Tamora Pierce - Alanna: The First Adventure Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar Terry Pratchett - Mort Mickey Zucker Reichert - Child of Thunder JK Rowling - Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban Louis Sachar - Wayside School is Falling Down Mary Shelley - Frankenstein Michael Stackpole - Star Wars: X-Wing Rogue Squadron JRR Tolkien - The Hobbit John Updike - Rabbit Redux Jules Verne - A Journey To the Center of the Earth Kurt Vonnegut - Timequake HG Wells - The Time Machine & The War of the Worlds Timothy Zahn - Star Wars: Heir To the Empire Non-Fiction: 101 Essential Tips for Golf by Peter Ballingall Accounting For Dummies (1997) Bantan New College Spanish & English Dictionary (1987) Building A PC For Dummies (1998 with CD) C for Dummies Volume 1 (1996) Creating Killer Web Sites by David Seigel (1996 large PB) Dave Barry Talks Back Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys Dave Barry In Cyberspace (HC-1st) Dirty Jokes & Beer by Drew Carey (HC-1st) Walt Disney World Resort: A Magical Year-by-Year Journey 1998 Edition (HC) Disney The Mouse Betrayed by Peter Schweizer (HC-1st) Easy Sudoku by Will Shortz (5 of 100 puzzles filled out) Flash MX Savvy (2002 large PB with CD) Handbook of Technical Writing 4th Edition by Charles Brusaw How To Be Funny by Jovial Bob Stine Linux for Dummies (1997 with CD) The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Card Games by The Diagram Group London Zoo: Conservation in Action (large PB) The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley MS-DOS 6.2 Upgrade for Dummies Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary 3rd Edition (1997, large PB with CD) Napalm & Silly Putty by George Carlin (HC-1st) Official Rules of the NFL (1994) People Almanac 2000 Photoshop 4 for Windows for Dummies (1997) Red Hat Linux Unleashed 2nd Edition (1998, large PB with CD) Seinfeld: The Totally Unauthorized Tribute by David Wild Upgrading and Repairing PCs 8th Edition (1998, large PB with CD) The World Almanac 2006 as you can see, there’s nothing here that is going to get lost to the ages if one copy ends up in a recycling plant…if I’m wrong about that, please advise. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-books-sacred-to-you-what-makes-throwing-them-away-such-a-sin/446281.md?page=3)