Friday, I purged our living room bookcases. I set aside around 120 books to rehome.
A few are paperback cozies that I took to various Little Free Libraries in or near our neighborhood on Saturday. Do you spy Jack on the right in the above photo?
The rest, Tom will box and take to a reseller. I doubt I’ll get any money for them, but they need to move on to new readers. I listed the titles so that if Jim and Tim want me to hold any of them back for them, I will.
A lot of those books are nonfiction, particularly related to the early years of HIV/AIDS. Maybe if people had read some of them, they’d have a better understanding of so much that happened with COVID. It’s called “woke” to think we should learn what science, medicine, sociology, and human experience can teach us from our history. I think it’s funny that “woke” is used as a pejorative.
Mostly, there’s a lot of great fiction in those stacks. The ones I love most I’ve read more than once; they’re only collecting dust here. They deserve to find new readers.
I also needed the shelf space–too many books were crammed in. They’re better arranged now (still divided by genre, and the two bookcases on the right changed very little). Tom adjusted a couple of shelves to make them look more uniform. Here’s how they are now.
I know I need to do this for the library shelves, too, but those contain literature, classics, and books I know I won’t get rid of for the foreseeable future. There’s really not a lot to rehome.
Little Free Library visits on Saturday:
We have those little free libraries here too. Some of the old red phone boxes have been reused to that purpose.
I am always loathe to rehome books, but it is necessary. There simply isn’t enough shelving in the world for all of the good books out there. Plus, books are meant to be read.
I think it important for a lot of people born after the height of AIDS epidemic to read about it. I see so many guys online wanting BB and proclaiming that they are on PrEP as if the latter is a panacea. Um. It doesn’t prevent syphilis or gonorrhoea or chlamydia or… Also, no, HIV isn’t the death sentence it once was, but do you really want to be managing a chronic health condition for the rest of your life? I keep my own counsel, of course, since guys online can be really nasty. Men, selfish?
I’m so far removed from current HIV/AIDS meds and protocols that it was only recently I even learned that PrEP existed. Hugely different from my interests in the ‘9os and earlier in this century. Those books are where I learned before there was this massive Internet for all of us. They literally changed my life, and I’ll always respect both non-fiction and fiction writers for that.