I find myself with over a hundred books I’d like to eliminate from my life. They are excellent books, classics, bestsellers, collections of essays, etc. I don’t have any reason to keep them in my house anymore. There are too many books that I have not yet read ever to imagine going back and rereading these.
There are some that I have kept. I’ve held onto my Vonnegut, my Twain, all of my poetry, and a few others for which rereading might someday happen, but the Marquis de Sade and The Valley of the Dolls?
Probably not.
But what am I to do with them?
Libraries won’t take them except once or twice a year, and I always miss their collection days.
Selling them on Amazon or eBay would net me almost nothing and consume excessive time.
I’ve thought about giving them away at my signings and creating some games with my books as prizes, but how will a bookstore feel about me giving away books when they try to sell them to their patrons?
Suzanne Munshower of The Guardian recently wrote about this issue, urging readers to avoid throwing the books away, suggesting that people instead give unwanted books to friends or donate them to a used bookstore.
I like both ideas, but there is no used bookstore local to me, and how am I supposed to pass off a copy of the Marquis de Sade to a friend? For the past six months, I’ve been driving around with about two dozen books in my backseat, a small percentage of the number I am trying to eliminate, hoping for that perfect moment when someone will want or need one of my books.
It has yet to happen. Oddly enough, the sudden need for a random classic piece of literature has not come up yet.
So, in my backseat, they remain, waiting for that new owner to step forward or for that used bookstore to appear on the horizon. I won’t throw them away, but I wish I lived in a world where these books were more attractive to those who have not yet read them.
