I love books.

I love reading books.  I love holding books.  I love being among great collections of books.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I own a lot of books.

Part of my library (early 2008)

I could easily borrow what I wish to read from a library.  I could get much of the relevant information from reference texts online.  I could go electronic with a Kindle or Nook.  But I don’t.  I like to own physical books.

I do read a tremendous number of electronic articles and short-form works on my computer, but certain applications still are best served by ink on dead trees.  Part of this has to do with their visibility and accessibility.

Book lovers tend to enjoy inspecting the collections of other readers, partly to find common ground and partly to gain personal insight.   The books can be causally pulled from the shelves, perused, discussed, borrowed, and loaned.  When my collection is observed, I want the message to be clear: what you see is me, not fluff.

My book collection can be divided into three categories: treasures, tools, and trophies.

The treasures are tomes that I find particularly enjoyable.  Favorite novels make up most of this group.  I keep them as reminders of who I am.  I keep them because they feature subjects, characters, or situations with which I identify strongly.   I keep them in the hope (fantasy?) that I’ll read them again someday.  I keep them because they are cherished gifts; they represent valued real-world relationships.

The tools tend to be reference works, how-to guides, and the like.  They are the books that I almost never read cover-to-cover, but I find myself going back to them on a regular basis to assist me in accomplishing a task.  Even in this age of Google and Wikipedia, these volumes continue to earn their places on my shelf.

The trophies are kept around to feed my ego or make the room look better.  They are mediocre, boring, error-riddled, irrelevant, poorly written, out-dated, over-rated, or infuriating.  They will never be opened again.  But they are famous, or they have good “shelf presence,” or they are bound in an eye-catching way.  They are for posturing.  They say, “Look at me!  Look at how well-read I am!”  They are lies.

I’m doing my best to rid myself of my trophy books.  They are a pain to move and store, and my retention of them is irrational and presumptuous.

Still, it’s difficult to actually let go.  I was raised to hold books in high regard.  Getting rid of a book — even a trophy, even one that I really hate — remains challenging.  I feel as though I’m committing a great crime against Knowledge or that I’m personally insulting the author.  I worry that I might need the book in the future.  I tell myself that maybe, just maybe, I’ll read it again someday and think differently of it. I worry about the book’s fate: will it be acquired and loved by somebody else, or will it be killed in the metal jaws of a shredder?

It’s best to do the deed quickly.  Get the volume out of sight.  Let it fade from memory.  After all, if the decision turns out to be regrettable, another copy will always be available.