I first want to apologize to the readers of this blog. I wanted to blog more often but life got in the way. I was forced to move by my former landlord. I prefer not to go into great detail about why I had to move, but I am happy to say that I love my new apartment and the neighborhood I’m now in. Of course, any time you move can be hard, but it when you are a book lover like me, the process can be almost daunting.
The first thing I realized before I moved was that I needed to purge books and winnow my collection. I had a purge last year but I wound up buying more books. I remember a trip to Northshire Books in Saratoga that yielded me with 4 or 5 new books. That isn’t helpful when you have to move.
Last year I blogged about purging books, so I won’t go into great detail but the whole process of getting rid of books was not easier the second time around. What helped in a was knowing that I was getting a Kindle, so I could get rid of some classics as well as popular books that would be no trouble finding in most bookstores, like The Hunger Games trilogy a friend gave. I also got rid of big books like The Interestings by Meg Wurlitzer or A Little Life by Hannah Yanagihara. Still, I think the biggest book I got rid of was The Quincunx by Charles Palliser. Published in 1989, it tells a Dickensean mystery that takes place in 19th Century London. According to Wikipedia, the book has “an ambiguous ending and unreliable narrators ” and it is only 1,221 pages long. And people complain about reading Infinite Jest.
My friend Ryan was a big help in contacting the AIDS Council for me so I could donate 14 boxes of books and CDs to them. They actually had someone come to my apartment to take them away. I was hoping it would be a couple of hunky gay men carting off my books and complimenting me on my taste in literature but I got an older man in his 60’s. He got all the boxes out of my apartment in 15 or 20 minutes. I felt like a weight fell off my shoulders.
When the day of the move arrived, I worried that I still had too many books. I had 8 or 9 boxes of books to move. I was happy that I all my books got moved in one day. My brother wanted to reuse one of the boxes books were in so he, my nephew Alex and my co-worker Gabe filled the bookcase that was already there in the small room off the kitchen. I also gave Gabe The Children by Edith Wharton, since he is a big fan of Wharton.
Of course, I have gone back to my old book whoring ways. I went to Pride a couple of weeks ago and the gay science fiction group’s table of free books and despite the heat, I picked up 16 books! I got a couple of Nagio March mysteries as well as the 2nd and 3rd book in The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy. I also found an old Ballentine edition of A Fan’ s Notes by Fredrick Exley with a 1970′ s cover. At least I did not go to the sidewalk sale at Stuyvesant Plaza that was run by The AIDS Council last Saturday. I am not that much of a loon.
I totally understand.. .xo
Book lovers know how hard it is.