I'm reading a book called
Stuff, it's about hoarding. It's interesting to see yourself in these things, and think about your own addictions. This year I finally started calling myself a book hoarder. I am capable of parting with books, but only really in the last couple years when my collection got into the 1000s and I had to get tuff with myself.
At first hoarding was identified as an obsessive compulsive disorder, but they've started distinguishing it for one key reason. OCD is about decreasing discomfort, whereas hoarding involves pleasure. For example, when I feel driven to go back to the bathroom five times before I fall asleep, it's because as I lay there in bed... the feeling that my bladder must be filling up at some inhuman rate and I HAVE to empty every last drop or else I'll pee my bed or something!!!ahhhh!!!! is discomfort. I can either suffer through and try to fall asleep anyway, or get up. Getting up seems easier than suffering. It's my total OCD moment, every night.
On the other hand, when I'm standing in a bookstore looking at titles and overwhelmed by the deliciousness of it all... that is not at all the same sort of compulsion. I've stood in the cooking section of my store, sometimes, with the determination not to leave without something new. When we have sales, when things go on special, it's really hard to not buy something, cause you get that "I must take advantage of this opportunity!!" feeling.
Years and years ago I tried to stop buying so many books, and then thought--hey, I won't work at this job forever, so why not stock up and I'll have great books for years to come! Ya, well. I still work here, and I've got enough fiction books to last 11 years, if I read one book per week. That's not counting the non-fiction. Ease, Miss Mabel, ease. But that's tres hoarding thinking--the idea that you might be missing out on an opportunity.
Another common idea among many hoarders is that this thing they don't want to get rid of represents knowledge that they might need one day (Eg. people who won't throw out newspapers, article clippings.) I was like this with books (mostly) until the internet saved me. I would spend years looking for research books on certain topics, and when I came across them I couldn't resist pouncing, and then I wouldn't get rid of the book for years and years because I might get back to writing x book which requires y research.
I still have that trouble, but it's getting easier. I at least try to resist adding to my collection.
The book also talks a lot about inheriting hoarding (at least by nurture, if not nature) which makes me think of my grandfather. He had a clean, neat home; it was very open and spacious, everything in place. But the man had BOOKS. His home was my idea of heaven. Books in every room, and boxes and boxes more stuffed into the basement. Some of my fondest memories are of sitting on the floor next to a cupboard stuffed with books, pulling them out, digging through the piles, and spontaneously getting sucked into stories of Pompeii, or the Roman arena games, or an Oscar Wilde play, or a book of dirty limericks.
Something not in this book, but which Peter Walsh (that New Zealand guy who helps milder hoarders get rid of stuff) often comments on is that sometimes we keep things because we have a picture of who we think we are, or who we wish we are, and it's just not accurate. For example, he'll make people go through all their kitchen gadgets, and challenge them on when was the last time they used it. Did they actually cook, or did they just have fantasies of being A Person Who Loves to Cook? Letting go of those things requires letting go of the fantasy.
Fair enough. How long will I hang onto my Arabic language books and CDs? (But I loooooves them! I did enjoy them when I thought I might do a PhD and wanted to start learning! I might get back to them! I might travel one day! Or is this a fantasy?)
My grandfather was an English lit prof, and after he died my mother sent me all his lit books. I finally had to tell myself that I'm never going to learn Middle English, become a Chaucer expert, or specialize in Medieval or Renaissance literature. I kept my favourite Dante book, and a couple Canterbury Tales books, but finally let the rest go.
Anyway. Interesting stuff, this Stuff.
After the depressingness of the George book, I wanted something lighter. And I've started a mystery novel about a bunch of sheep trying to solve their shepherd's murder. I learned of it last year when a customer requested it.
I'm also wondering whether to buy the new Cathleen Schine book. I loved three of her books (Love Letter, Rameau's Niece, Evolution of Jane), and then hated one so much I couldn't finish it. I have a fourth one that I haven't started yet. I'll probably give in--it's cheap on kobo. The reviews are really split, but they were on the books I loved too, so I can't go by that.
In my internet travels, I also discovered that The Enchanted April is in the public domain, so I downloaded it for my kobo. Very exciting! I read it over 10 years ago and enjoyed it. Not in a "OMG BEST BOOK EVER" way, but in a quiet sort of now-I-have-fond-memories way.
