Eleven boxes of books left our house this fall, and I know where every one of them went.
That still surprises me. For years, I thought nobody wanted old books anymore.
Our spare room is slowly turning into a little library. It’s the room that used to belong to my youngest, then held boxes, and now has a reading chair and one tall wall of shelves. I wrote a little about that room in my post on rightsizing instead of downsizing.
I was so excited about those shelves. Then I went around the house and gathered up every book we own.
They didn’t fit. Not even close.
There were books on the hall shelf, books under my bedside table, books in the linen closet (don’t ask), and two boxes in the basement I’d forgotten about. Paperbacks, cookbooks, Bible studies, my kids’ old picture books, and a whole set of encyclopedias from 1988.
I asked my daughter if she wanted any. She hugged me and said, “Mom, I read on my phone now.”
So I had a room for books, and far too many books for the room. If you’re wondering where to donate books when it feels like nobody wants them, this is where all of mine ended up.
The One Question That Decided Which Books Stayed
I couldn’t keep everything. So I gave every book one question.
“Will I read this again, or hand it to someone I love?”
If the answer was yes, it got a spot on the new shelves. If the answer was no, it went in a box.
That one question made it simple.
I didn’t have to decide if a book was good. Lots of good books went in the boxes. I only had to decide if it belonged in my life now.
Some books never even needed the question.