Let’s be real, part one of the KonMari method was rough. Really rough. After that, step two seemed easy. I could certainly thin my book collection.
First of All
Once the internet got wind of this step and how Marie Kondo only keeps about 30 books, things got pretty intense. Book-lovers were up in arms over this.
To this I say, hold your damn horses. If you think that the KonMari method is about throwing away books, you’re not listening. If your books spark joy, great – keep them and enjoy them. If they don’t, donate or sell them and don’t feel any guilt. That’s the method.
Also this tweet:
Don’t @ me on that one. You are not meant to keep every book you’ve ever read like some trophy.
Our Book Situation
OK, enough with my BS explanation of this books controversy (I have lots of opinions that you probably don’t care about). Let’s move on.
At home, we’ve got three dedicated book areas. This is, I realize, pretty scattered and kind of a lot. Running the width of our living room and dining area is a shelf. It’s home to my cookbooks, a few household resources (like my sewing bible) and plenty of knick-nacks. The rest of my books live in a cheap bookshelf in our bedroom.
Michael’s books are an entirely different story. He’s got three shelves full in his office that he’s not touching (yet). He’s a teacher with lots of textbooks and resources to manage plus a decently sized personal book collection. I’ll give him a pass for now. His
Overall, I think I have a fair amount of books. More than a lot of folks, but probably not as many as a lot of regular readers. I credit this to the library and a self-imposed limit. I never want more books than I can fit on my shelves – though, how they fit on that shelf is sometimes questionable.
To me, decluttering my collection isn’t high priority in terms of my clutter issues, but if Marie Kondo says books go next, well, books go next.
The Main Event
Now that you know my book sitch, let’s get to the main event, shall we?
I wanted to follow the method to the letter, so I started by pulling all my books off my bedroom shelf. It was hideously dusty because I’m a slob. I thought to myself even if I didn’t get rid of that much, at least I’d be rid of a mountain a few dust bunnies.
Taking the books out didn’t take long – maybe 10 minutes – but it was enough lifting to make me rethink grabbing all the cookbooks from the living room shelf. Getting a stepladder to reach them all and then carrying them across the house seemed like too much. Too much considering that I use most of those books regularly. As much as I wanted to follow Marie Kondo to the letter, I let the cookbooks stay. I’ll deal with the karmic consequences of that another day I’m sure.
Looking at my stacks of books, I was kind of underwhelmed by the amount. After being overwhelmed by Clothes Mountain last time, this was a good feeling. Before keeping and discarding, I tapped each stack to wake the books up energetically as Marie instructs. Does it do anything? Who knows! But it was kind of a happy way to start things off.
I worked my way through the piles fairly easily. My favorites were quick to spot and spark joy. I’m talking books by Lauren Groff, Louise Erdrich and Zadie Smith, my collection of scary stories and some reads I picked up on vacation this past year (and have yet to get to– oops). Also, you can pry my complete Calvin and Hobbes collection from my cold, dead hands.
As for the non-joyful books, I put them into two piles: one to sell now and another to pass along to my mom who called me asking for some books. I’ll be honest, having that “for Mom” pile was kind of a nice way for some books to get one last hurrah.
What Books Went?
After all this sorting, I’d estimate that I rid myself of 10 to maybe 15 percent of my books. That’s nothing to sneeze at, in my opinion.
So what books did I say sayonara to? Well, those fell into a few categories.
- Books that have served their purpose: Books I needed for school, books that I read and thought were OK (looking at you, airport reads).
- Books that had no purpose: The best of intentions here! I bought plenty of books thinking I’d get into a certain hobby or become a fan of an author only to realize that I wasn’t that interested at all.
- Books that I’m over: Jack Kerouac? Overrated. I don’t need a physical reminder of the time I wasted on every twenty-something-year-old bro’s favorite author. Same goes for an excessive amount of cupcake cookbooks. 2006 called – it wants its food trend back.
Putting It All Back: Book Edition
Unlike clothing, Marie Kondo doesn’t really specify a way to organize books post-tidying. That’s fine by me. I generally organize by theme.
Looking at the keepers, I wasn’t too daunted by putting it all back. I feel like I’ve reorganized this bookshelf a lot (but apparently not lately because of all that dust). Since the bookshelf is broken up into nine sections, I started to group books to fit into each cubby.
I’ve got a few compartments dedicated to fiction. My favorite contemporary authors share a shelf. Classics and older books go together. I’ve got another section dedicated to spooky, supernatural and otherworldly topics. That’s the most fun one to me.
I had expected some gaps after putting everything back but had none. Kind of a letdown, but I realized I shelved some books that had been sitting in a stack next to the shelf, plus I gave my old yearbooks a home there. Overall, though, it’s organized and dust-free, so that’s not so bad.
How Does It Feel?
Honestly, this didn’t feel like the triumph of KonMari part one. That being said, it wasn’t nearly as difficult and didn’t require nearly as much time or effort. I’m not disappointed.
Like last time, I think I could have been a bit more ruthless, but I’m still happy with the progress I made. In all, I got rid of 28 books. And I made $10 at Half Price Books. It’s tempting to scoff at offers like that, but the way I see it, it’s $10. That’s more than if I dumped them off at Goodwill and it took infinitely less effort than me trying to shop around to sell them.
I’m still appreciating the slowness of this process. It is so so tempting for me to just rush through things and organize hastily for a short-term fix, but knowing that I’ll get to craft supplies and kitchen gadgets in their own time is a good thing for me.
The next step is paperwork. I’m not so sure if that needs documenting, but maybe I’ll run into some juicy stuff!
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Like last time, you can see how I faired in real-time on my Instagram stories. There were some good finds!
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