In libris

I’m sitting in the National Library, sucking down latte and wi-fi in about equal quantities. This is because we have moved house and so far have no internet at home. Hence the blog silence. I’ll be back soon with more posts and a fresh look for the blog; apologies in the interim.

I’ve posted about moving before, since I seem to do it about annually. Being married to a minimalist has curbed my tendency to keep everything in case it matters later. His view is: if in doubt, throw it out. So this move was a bit leaner than previous ones. And it was, I admit, pretty cathartic to throw away letters, papers, notes that I’ve been carting for a couple of decades that really won’t ever matter again.

I also threw away some books (gasp!) but I find books are a bit like the magic pudding. No matter how many you give away, you always seem to have just as many – way too many to make moving easy. But it’s good to keep one’s book collection dynamic. As you add to it, you can cut away some of the dead wood. You can think seriously about whether this or that book matters now in the way it did then, and if it ever did at all. You can audit your reading habits and history. You can cleanse your reading palate, and thus your intellect, and your imagination. It’s a way to ensure your books live and breathe in your life, that your library is not a museum.