the mock-up.

Every literary person I know is attached to their book collection. I'm no exception -- last September, I lugged 11 boxes of books to my Davis Square digs. They filled every inch of my homemade, non-earthquake-proof cinder block bookshelves; the leftovers were neatly stacked over my wardrobe and at the foot of my bed. There's just something comforting about being surrounded by books. They make you look smart, for one thing. It's fun to loan them out when a friend is looking for something to read, too. But mostly, they're just a big, wordy security blanket -- getting rid of a book inevitably engenders a panicked feeling of "But what if I NEED it someday?"

post-purge bookshelves
Originally uploaded by the mock-up.

Anyway, my documentary film class ended last week, and I promptly pulled the textbooks off my shelf. I just cannot envision a scenario in which I will immediately need to reference Carl Plantigna's artful analysis of gender issues in This is Spinal Tap. (And if I do, it's sitting in Google Books.) While I was at it, I started pruning some lit crit I never use and some trendy non-fiction I only really needed to read once. Before I knew it, I had purged two-thirds of my book collection.

Anyone who's seen my room pre-book-purge (or saw my Porter Square apartment) realizes how ridiculous this sounds. Here's a breakdown of what I hung onto:

• A heavily-annotated set of Arden Shakespeares and three of my Norton anthologies. Any English major knows how impossible it is to part with a Norton anthology -- and those are books I actually do refer to on an embarassingly regular basis.


• 25 pieces of fiction that I've read multiple times and plan on reading multiple times more. Some Salman Rushdie, James Joyce, and other sentimental favorites.


• 12 pieces of non-fiction that are equally battered with use; your Klostermans and Hornbys reside here, given prime shelf position for grabbing on my way to the T.


• 4 pieces of fiction I haven't read yet. The latest addition is Seeing, which I picked up at Raven Used Books last month for $6.


• 6 reference books.


• 4 books of poetry.


• A full shelf of media studies books; doc film theory aside, I hung onto most of my grad school textbooks.


• 5 pretty, oversized books that are just fun to flip through; Mapping Boston and Historic Globe Sports Pages and a leather-bound Cambridge Shakespeare anthology. I'd put them out on a coffee table if we had one.

That's it. I gave about 30 books to friends; the remaining 150 are piled in my living room ready to go to Hands Across the Water (once I find some damn boxes).

After I got over the initial separation anxiety, getting rid of the books felt amazingly good. I remember reading something, somewhere, about how making space on your bookshelves has the same effect on your brain, making space for new ideas. And as much as I bristle at hippy-dippy interior decorating philosophy, I have to admit that I've been writing a lot more -- everything from thesis notes to bad poetry. Hell, I might even start blogging semi-regularly again.

So, my literary friends, I encourage you to set your books free. Then again, it was my literary friends who carted off several bags of my books when I said I was giving them away, so I'm probably wasting my breath.