The Great Book Cull of 2015

So the husband and I are moving into our New Chicago Condo this week. Moving sucks for everyone, but it really sucks when you’re a book lover. Seriously, if we didn’t have books we’d have ten boxes and a few couches to move. (Okay, that’s hyperbole, but you get the idea.) We ditched a lot of books when we made the move to the Second City, and I’ve culled even more during the moving process. It’s an odd feeling. Anyone who is a book lover can attest that books are friends. Lovers, even. They keep you company on cold nights and hot vacations. They open your mind–if you let them–and allow you to see the world in new ways. The good ones stick with you long after you’ve bid them good night. The great ones keep you up all night until you’ve finished.

Going through a book collection is akin to going through old diaries. Oh, this is from my Dean Koontz phase. Oh, Tess Gerritson–I read her when I wanted to be a forensic pathologist. Brust–ah, yes, Brust–I got into him when I first moved away from classic epic fantasy. This shelf is full of books written by friends. This one includes stories written by me. The collection a visual (and a heavy, pain-in-the-ass-to-move) representation of the my journey as a person, and more recently, as a writer. Some of them are easier to part with than others. Some I’ll never give away–the Harry Potter series, my Stephen King collection (including a copy of The Stand that has been read so much it’s falling apart) (yes, I know it has a duex ex machina ending, I don’t care, I love that fucking book so much), the Wheel of Time series. But the Tess Gerritsons, some of the Dean Koontzes, the Patricia Cornwells? Those are going in the donation pile.