Books to read box
Last year, Erin wrote about using a cardboard box as a holding place for things you’re debating whether to part with or keep. Twice a year, you can go through the box and get rid of all of the things you never accessed. The box is great for keeping things out of sight, but not out of reach if you end up needing something inside the box.
Recently, Trent at The Simple Dollar blog took this idea a step further and suggested creating a “books to read” box. The idea is the same as mentioned above, but just for books. I really liked this idea and decided to implement it myself.
In preparing for my upcoming move to a smaller apartment, I evaluated all of the books on my shelves. I first divided them into piles based on the type of book, then went through each pile to determine which were trusted favorites, books I haven’t yet read, and which could be sold. Among the keepers were books I frequently reference and books I really enjoyed and would like to read again, and these will go directly onto the bookshelf when we get to the new place. But, there were still a bunch of books I haven’t read yet that I really want to tackle.
This is where Trent’s “books to read” box comes into the picture. When I move to the new place, I can put these books in a box in the closet until a future, specified date. When the date arrives, I can rotate the items in the box with a few of my favorites sitting on the bookshelf or get rid of books I have come to realize I won’t ever read. Having the newer books will be like a little present to myself!
Posted by Teri on Jun 6, 2008 |
Comments
| 
Tweet This
20 comments posted
Posted by Meghan - 06/06/2008
If you have a lot of books to sell, some bookstores make house-calls to buy your books. You may not get as much as if you brought them to the store, but if you really have a ton it could be worth it.
Posted by D - 06/06/2008
That’s one approach. In my small apartment though I decided that I absolutely had to place an upper limit on books or they’d overwhelm me. I’ve decided that if it won’t fit on 5 Ikea Billy bookcases (with the extra shelf up top mind you), then it goes. I refuse to have more than 5 bookshelves of books, no matter how much it occasionally hurts to thin the herd. I won’t have a box of books because one box can turn to two, or can upgrade to a larger box… and the books will have won again. Instead my wife and I each have a “to read” shelf, and we share a “to go” shelf of things we’re ready to pass on. Glancing quickly at the “to read” shelf lets you know when it’s time to go book shopping, but the “to go” shelf’s about full, which leads to another problem…
Oh, 5 bookcases sounds like a lot, but they’re lining one side of the hallway floor to ceiling — free space and really warms up an otherwise long white hallway.
Posted by arianna - 06/06/2008
That’s also a really great idea for limiting your book intake…you could make a rule that you won’t obtain any to-read books that don’t fit into the box. The whole one-in, one-out idea that’s cropped up a lot here on Unclutterer.
The only reason I probably won’t implement this is because I love to see all the books I’ve got, especially when I’m deciding what to read next. Plus, I love the look of lots books, in general. I do, however, try to limit the amount of books I retain because I move often (mostly, like above, I hold onto favorites and to-reads) by passing them on to friends or through PaperBackSwap.com.
Posted by Ann - One Bag Nation - 06/06/2008
I like the look of lots of books too; I think they add interest to a room and tell something about the owner/reader.
That being said, I just sold two large bags of books to the used bookstore because we needed the shelf space to create a play/art room for my daughter (a work in progress).
The reading pile I find impossible to tame is the one next to my bed . . .any ideas?
Posted by AMK - 06/06/2008
Keep in mind the technique many employ for thinning out their closets. If you haven’t read a book on your “to read” list, it falls into the same category of a piece of clothing you haven’t worn in ___ length of time (a season, a year, etc.).
There is a difference between things you want to do/read/ wear and things you think you “should” do/read/wear. Keeping “should” things around brings guilt, not joy.
Posted by Beverly - 06/06/2008
Oh boy. This could never be me. I love books, I love having books. Having said that, one of the best ideas I have gleaned from this site was LibraryThing, on which I have been cataloging my book collection. And in so doing, I have had to touch every single one of them, and decide if I want it, if it’s a duplicate, if I really will ever read it again, does it mean enough to me to spend the time and effort to catalog it. Quite a few books made it into the donate pile this way. The TBR pile will never go away, but I have a dedicated shelf for that and keep lists (computer) of yet to read that come after those.
Posted by Zenplease - 06/06/2008
This is really a good idea. I may have a project this weekend!
By the way, I am having a contest to try and get a bunch of RSS readers, subscribe now and be drawn for the mystery prize!
http://zenplease.com/zen-please-announcement/
Posted by Bex! - 06/06/2008
I love books, but I also love my local library. I got away from using the library for several years and am now getting back to it. The books I aim to own now are books that are likely to get messy and thus unsuitable for borrowing(e.g. cookbooks, trail guides) and books I really love (would read again, recommend, etc.). It’s saving me space and money (I don’t know how many books I bought, read once, didn’t love, and passed on).
Posted by sjwilde - 06/06/2008
I’m preparing for a cross-country move in August and am drastically downsizing my 2,000 or so books. Many of them are still on the shelves in a “read before I move” category. I’m reading close to a book a day but will still have to get rid of huge numbers that I’d still like to read but am unlikely to after the move. My new rule after the move will be whenever a new book goes on the shelves, an old one goes. Plus I have a Kindle, so I can get many books cheaper with no physical presence. Books have become a true neurotic burden to me.
Posted by Meags - 06/06/2008
I have a “shelf” that I made on my bedroom dresser with about 50 books between two heavy bookends as my “to read” shelf, and I have a nice canvas storage tote on the floor in our living room as my “to be swapped or given away” bookshelf. Anything that is “for keeps” is on our actual bookshelf, and this system works well for me. Up until a week or so ago, I had the “to go” pile in a nasty ugly cardboard box, and just buying the nicer box made a huge difference in looks.
Posted by Michele - 06/07/2008
I’m with @arianna, I think. I like keeping a (very) small stack of books-in-progress and books-next-on-my-list at one end of my coffee table. So long as there’s no other clutter on the table — papers, mail, pens, daughter’s toys, etc. — I like the way it looks.
@Ann – One Bag Nation: I just cleaned out my pile of maybe a cubic yard of books by my bed. What worked for me was understanding how they’d accumulated there. I would bring a book to bed, read a chapter, then put it on the floor and go to sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat the next night with a new book. I picked one book to continue with bedtime reading and hauled all the others back to the livingroom and shelved them. My new rule is that I’m allowed only one book in my bedroom: the one I’m currently reading at bedtime! And it goes directly onto the nightstand shelf before I turn the light out.
Posted by Lily - 06/07/2008
I could never see books as a neurotic burden or even clutter. Under the bed, out on the coffee table, in bookshelves – wherever , they are my friends. Some I meet up with almost every day, some less often and some I haven’t met properly yet. I don’t see my kids or my pets as clutter or a storage problem and neither do I see my books that way either. I am as fussy as heck in lots of other things but never with books. Books as clutter ? Perish the thought!
Posted by Beth - 06/08/2008
@Bex! – Thanks!
It always makes me so happy to see the library love every time Unclutterer posts anything about books.
Since I work in a public library (and, in fact, I’m the interlibrary loan clerk in a state with an *excellent* ILL system – yeah, I’m spoiled!) the only books I own are enduring favorites. If I use or read something once or twice and decide I’m not going to read it again, it goes straight to the library.
I manage my to-read list with the Visual Bookshelf application in Facebook – easier for me than LibraryThing because I’m already on the site doing other stuff; and I’m less concerned about content tagging than status tagging, which in VB is a one-or-two-click action. Each time I move something from “to-read” to “reading,” I take a quick scan of the whole list and decide if there’s anything I’ve lost interest in. This helps rein in the “ooh-shiny” effect, so I add stuff freely and don’t feel guilty about removing it unread.
I do the same thing with my Netflix queue – when I mail a disc back, I log on, find out what’s coming next and re-order the queue if necessary, and weed out things we’ve decided we’re not interested in. On the other hand, there are a few movies that aren’t particularly high priority but I definitely DO want to see eventually, and it does no harm if they sit at #50 or so for months at a time.
Posted by Alex Fayle - 06/09/2008
I used to have a book addiction, but unfortunately my house couldn’t handle the storage requirements, so I went through a process.
1. I went through all my books and moved about 2/3 of them to boxes in the basement.
2. After 6 months I reviewed the books. If I really missed them, they came back out. Others I decided to re-read once more then get rid of.
3. After 2 more months (to give myself time to re-read the books) I called a local University book sale and they came and took them away.
By taking 8 months to get rid of the books, I weaned myself off them. I knew that at any point I could go into the basement and search for any book that I really missed. If I had gotten rid of the books right away, I wouldn’t have pared down so much because I would have been afraid that I’d get rid of something I would miss but not know it at the time.
Of course, the process assumes you have the space to store the books in boxes for a period…
Cheers,
Alex
Posted by Shanel Yang - 06/09/2008
Great topic!
My family was poor, so when we got our first World Book encyclopedia set, complete with the bonus Childcraft series, I was enthralled. This intense respect for books — especially expensive, heavy, hardcover college textbooks — lead me to accumulate over time probably over 1,000 “must keep” books. (They filled at least 30 moving boxes!) Unfortunately, my family moved every 4 – 6 years, a habit which I perpetuated well into my adulthood, so I had to lug all of that around with me. Then, when I was suddenly between homes and without any place to house my books, a friend kindly offered to let me store them in his large home library, which was mostly walls of empty shelves after a recent divorce. (I could only assume that his ex-wife had taken all the books.) Anyhow, he assured me that I could leave them there as long as I wanted or take them back anytime. I was grateful and took him up on the offer.
As you might have guessed, I never felt the need to go back for those books. Sure, I get nostalgic for them once in a blue moon. But, that’s not worth moving them back into my life. My memory of them is good enough.
Posted by Angie - 07/13/2008
A volunteer organization now has a project to send books to our military stationed overseas, where they plan to take pictures of the service man or woman actually reading the book. The picture is then sent back to the children of the military wo/man to keep them encouraged to read and keep up their studies! Check with United Way or local service organizations to find out where to drop off books.
I scan magazine pages to files/garden,recipe,politics etc. Keeps me from having stacks of the so’n’sos gathering dryer lint.
Posted by stevenkitche - 07/15/2008
frog all keyboard trust are
Posted by mankeybag - 07/29/2008
busy stone keyboard house
Posted by samantha - 05/27/2009
I’m a member of this site book army and through them i found out about this thing where you can swap books you’ve read and never want to read again for books that other people feel the same about. I’v done 2 and its a great way of getting rid of books. however if you dont get one you like back, your kind of back at square one…
Posted by April - 07/15/2009
Baltimore has Book Thing, a free book swap. http://bookthing.org/ “Our mission is to put unwanted books into the hands of those who want them.”
I probably need to make a huge donation again. Yet a few more idealized selves to recognize will not happen.
Post a comment