You guys would have been freaked out this weekend. My friend who is a librarian was burning her library’s outdated copy of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. She said she tried to give it away but no one wanted it. She blames the internet. Anyway, I felt a bit weird about it, and we actually read the first and last entry of each volume before we did our best Guy Montag.
Me, I would have tried to Freecycle it or donate it to a library booksale or Salvation Army. It wasn’t my decision to burn it, though I guess there are some books so old that no one wants them.
As others have mentioned, it really depends on the book.
For quite awhile in my life I was a packrat and wouldn’t get rid of anything, including ratty, no-cover paperbacks I used to forage from a dumpster behind a bookstore in 6th-7th grade. But eventually ( by my mid-30’s ) I decided enough was enough and chucked at least 2/3 of my paperbacks at the local recycling center ( where the hordes descended, picking over them voraciously as I was dumping them ). Eventually I will cave and most of the rest will go, as they are sitting in a garage, unread.
But a few things will get retained, either for sentimental reasons or because they will get re-read eventually. I re-read almost everything. To this day I’m pissed my step-mother talked me into getting rid of tons of children’s books - some of them quasi-irreplaceable like my hoard of out-of-print Albert Payson Terhune collections.
Academic books of any kind are NEVER tossed. Sure I may never need that two volume hardback translation of Viktor Beklemishev’s Principles of Comparative Anatomy of Invertebrates, that I rescued from being tossed by a professor acquaintance. Then again, I MIGHT :p. Reference texts do take on a bit of a Holy sheen for me, I admit. Frankly I’m rapidly running out of room for all the academic junk, especially as I just went on another buying spree after getting my fat tax return.
Now as it happens I do have an EXTRA copy of Cemal Kafadar’s Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State ( 1996, University of California Press ). In case anyone wants it :).
I don’t know why I can’t do it. But yeah, I’m one of those who can’t throw away books, especially text type books. On rare occasions, if a book is truly vile (I ran across a nasty porn book disguised as science fiction once), I’ll happily throw it away. But mostly, even if I didn’t like a particular book, I’ll at least donate it to Sallys or some such.
Pegged it really really REALLY well.
And I would mention this: a book took more emotional energy, good or bad, than a gewgaw, or even many records or videos.
And there’s a terror of losing something forever. Sure, I won’t cry if a Michael Chrichton tome winds up in the recycling bin, but so much literature is never going to be there again. F’rinstance: I have this book recording, with color photos too, the 1986 Nikkei Awards (that’s a sort of national industial award in Japan, I think), that I rescued from the shredder. Time travel for cheap. How would I ever replace this if I wanted to go there again?
Normally I will not toss a book, and if it is a hardback [or especially a signed book] it will never get tossed* because I will give them away to others unless it is a favorite read. As it is we still have some 4000+ books…
I will amend that to starting fairly soon, some of our old favorites that the books are getting seriously ratty will be sacrificed by being scanned in, OCRd and then since the scanning will be essentially destroying the book discarded into a compost pit. I figure it falls under I bought a copy, I own a [scanned] copy. I dont intend to file share. We have so many paperbacks that we kept because we really like the books, but they are printed on nonarchival materials and this scanning process is the only way we will have a copy as most of them are seriously out of print and we are not going to pay collectors prices for a book to sit and read.
except for the signed Battlefield Earth that some misguided exboyfriends mom gave me because she knew I liked that wierd SF stuff…we just havent found the proper time to have a single bookburning ]
Some books are special, they are historic, original, or simply well made, they should be saved for future generations. Some books are nothing but newspapers with better bindings. There’s no purpose in saving them, they won’t be read again, they’ll just take up space until your heirs throw them all away when you die.
The problem is that some book lovers refuse to distinguish between the two, placing all books in the first category.
I so, so agree. Books that should be saved are what libraries (public and private) are for. Something else to think about- saving each and every book that comes through a collection can even put the best books at risk for acid damage over the decades. I personally don’t throw books away unless they are unreadable, but that’s because I don’t have to- I mentioned in the other thread how I don’t have to throw anything still usable away because I have a place I can put it to be snagged by passersby without cluttering up a walkway- but I have no problem divesting.
Thanks for the link to Operation Paperback, rocking chair. I just signed up as a volunteer, and I’m going to sort through my pile and see what I have that would be appreciated over there. Even so, I don’t think that is a particularly compelling point in the argument that no books should ever be thrown away (not that you were necessarily making that argument). They have fairly specific requirements, and rightly so. The box of old elementary school science texts that I grabbed for collage (like that’s gonna happen) won’t do the soldiers any good, and they specifically ask for romance novels to be left at home. (Not that I have a bunch of romance novels, but the Harlequin oeuvre is exhibit A of books that really don’t need to be preserved in perpetuity.)
It looks like complete sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica are going for around $50 on ebay, regardless of year. Some years appear to be more desirable than others. Might be something to check the next time your friend feels the urge to fire up the Zippo.
I wouldn’t throw them in the garbage - that would be really wasteful. I give them to my friends or donate them- i think it’s soo ridic to throw away a book- it’s not food- it doesn’t go bad
I would love to have one of those for me and one for my mom. Do you sell them? PM if you like.
I have only once thrown away a book. It was this vile thing that purported to be a diary of an early American frontiersman (it was fiction) and it was page after page after page of disgusting repetitive and detailed descriptions of his sexual encounters with some random Native American woman which as far as I was concerned amounted to rape. It literally made me physically ill to read it, so I threw it away. In fact I think I burned it, so as to protect others from its evil effects.
I tend to keep books even if I will probably never read them again, just because hey, I might change my mind. Or maybe there’s some particular passage or chapter that I like to read. I’ve read the last chapter of “Anno Dracula” about a dozen more times than I’ve read the rest of the book, and as dumb as the rest of the book is, the final wiggle battle from “Dragon on a Pedestal” I find very gripping no matter how many times I read it. Lately I’ve been doing some extensive work on a number of Wikipedia articles and have dug into books that are decades old for first-hand accounts and other material. When I do decide to clear some out, I wouldn’t throw them away. I’ll take them to the used book store and get a few bucks for them. As so many others have said, someone will probably want them.
I’ve found it difficult to trash even terrible books, due to the number of times in history that books with “unpleasant” or heretical ideas were banned or burned in an effort to stop their ideas from destroying people’s brains/morality/what-have-you. To me, throwing away a book is like destroying knowledge.
Now, that hasn’t stopped me from selling my unwanted books to used book stores or in garage sales or giving them to shelters or any of the other many ways to get them out of my house. I just can’t destroy what someone else may find enjoyable or inspirational.
I do cherish books. I read a lot and I used to read far more. I have thousands in my home and when I do get rid of books, it is not the garbage they go to but instead to used books stores or charities that take books.
I also buy many of my books used. This is both for my love of books and my love of the earth where I like to recycle as much as I can.
I’ll recycle books. Filled in crossword puzzle books. Maybe Windows 95 manuals. Besides that …
I don’t consider selling the book to a used bookstore, or donating it, throwing it out. But if it goes into the trash, then no one else can get pleasure out of it. And you never can tell. I have plenty of books I bought in high school which have turned out to be valuable now - like the Ace SF Special edition of The Left Hand of Darkness for instance.
It’s my upbringing. My mother was a Depression child, and when she got a book for her birthday it was a special event. That’s the kind of value I assign each of my 5,000.
As for other stuff, don’t underestimate what people want. I have an excessive number of jigsaw puzzles (most from the thrift store) and when we cleaned out the garage I took the ones I could bear to give away and put them on the curb. They all got taken. We saw some of the people who took them, and they were very happy to get puzzles for free, and I was happy at keeping them out of the landfill. You’d be surprised at what people want. One of the games my kids like best was gotten for free when the mayor of our town put it on the curb one day.
Yep. I think that book has influenced many book hoarders, er, collectors.
Libraries too (some of which are almost church-like). You must take care of the books and bring them back so others can read them. Even if the book hasn’t been checked out in 20 years.
How hard is it to take the unwanted books to a thrift store/homeless drop-in center/library donation box? They have unlimited usefulness until someone wastes them. Sheesh.
I have no qualms about tossing out books I have no intention of ever picking up again. I’ll always ask the local public and junior college libraries if they want 'em, but only to provide them with a copy of something they want and would otherwise have to pay for. But if they don’t want 'em, in the trash they go. I happen to know that the local public library has two copies each of Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake, and neither has been checked out since the late 1990s. So when I get around to cleaning out my bookcase, those two will both go in the local landfill (it will be cathartic for me; I may personally drive them to the landfill and throw them in).
I am guilty of viewing books as sacred. (Though, clutter control and usefulness tempers my pack rat nature.) I also love libraries. I view them the way many people think of churches (I’m not religious) - as a sort of spiritual refuge. This is getting a bit weird, but I even feel a calming and uplifting effect just walking into one. Getting rid of a book, if I’ve read it and experienced any kind of emotional response, is like throwing out a friend. Even if I haven’t read it or liked it, it still feels too much like discarding a person.
) I decided enough was enough and chucked at least 2/3 of my paperbacks at the local recycling center ( where the hordes descended, picking over them voraciously as I was dumping them ). Eventually I will cave and most of the rest will go, as they are sitting in a garage, unread.
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