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Paring Down: What will you never part with from your library?

Discussion in 'Tilted Art, Photography, Music & Literature' started by Japchae, Aug 5, 2013.

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  1. Japchae

    Japchae Very Tilted

    With all of this recent talk about bookshelves and paring down, I'm curious...
    What do you all have on your shelves that you will never part with
    unless under extreme duress?
    What would you mourn the most if something were to happen to it?
    (I'm limiting this to books with pictures or words, not photo albums,
    as many of us would never part with those anyway)

    Here's my list, in no particular order...

    My first edition copy of Gone with the Wind
    My grandmother's bible, though I'm not religious, it still was hers.
    A Prayer for Owen Meany
    Yalom's Existential Psychotherapy
    APA's Publication Manual, 6th edition (most current has to be on my shelf)
    Remy Charlip and Jerry Joyner's Thirteen, Matilda and Her Kittens and
    The Giving Tree from my childhood
    Bodymind by Ken Dychtwald
    and for some silly reason, I've carted my copies of all of the Clan of the Cave Bear series with me
    through every move during and since college.
    I don't re-read them any more, but I love them. The Thornbirds, too.

    Your turn.
     
    Japchae, Aug 5, 2013
    #1
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  2. Misguided

    Misguided Vertical

    Location:
    Hyborian age
    To Kill a Mockingbird
    All the books I have from Robert E Howard
    My library from when I worked for the Forest Service.
     
    Misguided, Aug 5, 2013
    #2
  3. Charlatan

    Charlatan sous les pavés, la plage

    Location:
    Temasek
    My various copies of Lord of the Rings (I have more than one).
    Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and Baroque Cycle
    A bunch of cookbooks

    There are a bunch more that have also survived many purges, but those are the ones that would survive the ultimate purge (and even the non-cookbooks are on the cusp as I have them in digital forms).
     
    Charlatan, Aug 5, 2013
    #3
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  4. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    As some of you know by now, we're currently going through a paring down process before we move. We'll likely get rid of as many as 100 books or more by the time we're done.

    I'm getting rid of books that I don't think I'll read again, or that I wouldn't mind just picking up from the library.

    I'm keeping books that I consider essential. I can't list them here, but I do have a few groupings that help explain what I prefer to hold on to.

    Most older works I tend to keep. More specifically, I'll also hold on to (and expand on in some cases) the following:
    • The Riverside Chaucer and accompanying supplementary volumes
    • The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition
    • Most works from the Romantic and modernist periods
    • Works that I consider exemplars of postmodernism
    • Any works of poetry
    • Most anthologies
    • Anything by Jane Austen, Henry James, James Joyce, Don DeLillo, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, and a few others
    • A handful of fantasy with a high reread value: The Lord of the Rings, The Fionavar Tapestry, The Book of the New Sun, A Song of Ice and Fire, my Conan collection, my Elric collection, etc.
    • Books on literary/cultural criticism
    • Non-fiction that won't be obsolete/irrelevant within a decade
    Yes, I think that covers a good swath. Remember that this includes many single works that I consider essential. There would be too much to list here, and it is only growing.
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2013
    Baraka_Guru, Aug 5, 2013
    #4
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  5. cynthetiq

    cynthetiq Administrator Staff Member Donor

    Location:
    New York City
    I don't have anything at the moment to keep. I pared down several times in my life that I don't have much attachments to anything.

    Sometimes I wish I did.
     
    cynthetiq, Aug 5, 2013
    #5
  6. Japchae

    Japchae Very Tilted

    This makes me sad.
    Even if only to crack open a volume that smells like home and comfort.
    I have to have them...
     
    Japchae, Aug 5, 2013
    #6
  7. snowy

    snowy so kawaii Staff Member


    Mmm, like my Anne of Green Gables set. I received it as a gift when I was 10 and I've been toting it around ever since. One book fell apart (House of Dreams) and had to be replaced.

    I have lots of books I could never part with. I'm staring at about 40 of them. My writing books make up a quarter of that--more, if you count some other volumes that touch on writing instruction/language acquisition.

    I'm very attached to my books. It would take a lot for me to part with any of them. I use or read pretty much all of them. Some are content books (literature) and are therefore also important to my profession. I guess it's fortunate for me that I have a profession that condones/enables the hoarding of books. I'll think on the books of extreme duress part.
     
    snowy, Aug 5, 2013
    #7
  8. Poetry

    Poetry Totally Sharky, Complete

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I actually already know the answer to this, having to do an emergency evac of my house a few years back.

    Black Coffee Blues (Rollins)
    Broken Summers (Rollins)
    Live for a Living (Wakefield)

    I left everything else.
     
    Poetry, Aug 6, 2013
    #8
  9. DamnitAll

    DamnitAll Wait... what?

    Location:
    Central MD
    I might sort of be in between paring down and holding onto books I didn't think I'd have to hold onto. In clearing the shelves of the spare room of all the books belonging to my ex, I had assumed she'd be taking a great deal more of them with her than she actually has. And there are quite a few I'd be happy to keep that she ended up leaving behind—lucky me! Of course, the flip side is that I'd intended to pare down stuff anyway once all of her shit is finally out of the house (this week, hopefully) with the intention of changing things around pretty significantly in that room...eventually, at least.

    I'd had grand plans years ago to teach myself enough programming that I could build myself a database and record every book I owned so that I'd at least hold onto the titles and be able to go back to them if I ever wanted to reread something—or read something I'd once owned that I never got around to cracking open. I had similar plans to build a database of every piece of music I had ever played. Neither of those things is probably going to happen, but I am going to take a nice, hard look at my bookshelves and their contents, along with the books stacked all over the floor, and see what I'm ready to say goodbye to and which ones I absolutely must keep.
     
    DamnitAll, Aug 6, 2013
    #9
  10. Speed_Gibson

    Speed_Gibson Hacking the Gibson

    Location:
    Wolf 359
    Top of my head, but there is definitely more on this list.
    The Dark Tower series in hardback.
    Chronicles of Narnia, currently in paperback but upgrading those is on my "someday" list.
    Lord of the Rings in hardback
    The Phantom Tollbooth
     
    Speed_Gibson, Aug 6, 2013
    #10
  11. spindles

    spindles Very Tilted

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    I'm planning to never move house again, so that means you can pack up my books when my body is cold!
     
    spindles, Aug 6, 2013
    #11
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  12. snowy

    snowy so kawaii Staff Member

    Okay. The list of books I absolutely could not part with:
    • My Anne of Green Gables box set. It's probably the set of books I've owned the longest.
    • My Lord of the Rings omnibus
    • The Silmarillion in hardback
    • The Two Towers, illustrated edition--illustrated by Alan Lee
    • Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton. Not because I love the book, but because it was a gift from one of my favorite teachers.
    • The Grapes of Wrath, for the same reason.
    • Tess of the D'Urbervilles, for similar reasons. Not a gift, but a recommendation from the above teacher, and one of my favorite novels.
    • Pride and Prejudice. The copy I have was one given to me by one of my English professors. It's very dear to me, and well-worn.
    • Resources for Research and Documentation Across the Curriculum by Diana Hacker. It's designed to accompany the Bedford Handbook, but on its own, it's a great pocket resource for MLA/APA.
    • Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace by Joseph Williams
    In general, I'd prefer to keep my books on:
    • Human development
    • Sociology
    • History
    • Philosophy (between the two of us, my husband and I have quite a collection)
    • Writing
    • Teaching
    • Shakespeare
    • Romantic poetry
    • Criticism
    • American literature
    • English literature
    • Literature of Western Civ
    In some cases, I'd be content to just keep my Norton anthologies.
     
    snowy, Aug 6, 2013
    #12
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  13. mixedmedia

    mixedmedia ...

    Location:
    Florida
    I wouldn't want to part with any of the books I have, but if I had to grab fast and run:

    My Alice Munro and Henry James books.
    and Geek Love.

    I could read those over and over for the rest of my life and not be bored.
     
    mixedmedia, Aug 8, 2013
    #13
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  14. Charlatan

    Charlatan sous les pavés, la plage

    Location:
    Temasek
    Geek Love was a fun read.
     
    Charlatan, Aug 8, 2013
    #14
  15. amonkie

    amonkie Very Tilted

    Location:
    Windy City
    My copies of the following books:

    The Giver

    Sophie's World

    The Giving Tree

    My grandmother's bible

    My collection of Guy de Maupassant poems - original 1892 print, still held together in original binding

    The Awakening



    I think an equally curious question, to put it as mixedmedia did would be the "run into a burning building and grab which books?"
     
    amonkie, Aug 8, 2013
    #15
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  16. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    Nice! I don't have anything remotely like that, but I recall the awe I experienced when handling a 16th century binding of 14th century poet Petrarch in the original Italian.

    If there were ever a good reason to learn Italian, it would be for that.
     
    Baraka_Guru, Aug 8, 2013
    #16
  17. amonkie

    amonkie Very Tilted

    Location:
    Windy City
    The best part is I found it on ebay for $2.30. It includes one of the poems that was the inspiration for Kate Chopin's The Awakening. When I brought the book to my college professor and told him I got the book for "Two Thirty" , he thought I meant $230 and told me that it was an absolute steal for the book in the condition it is in. I didn't have the heart to tell him the real amount.
     
    amonkie, Aug 8, 2013
    #17
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  18. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    If I had the disposable income and the proper space to store them, I'd be a rare book bargain hunter. The tingle I felt when I read this...I imagine it was just a fraction of what you felt when you found that deal.

    I mean, jeezus, you can barely even get a decent cup of coffee for that amount.
     
    Baraka_Guru, Aug 8, 2013
    #18
  19. Japchae

    Japchae Very Tilted

    I thought about framing it as a burning building question, but I'm learning to value other things over my books. Myself, my cats, my man, my laptop and drives with my photos.
     
    Japchae, Aug 8, 2013
    #19
  20. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    Relevant:

    “Let’s say there was a burning building and you could rush in and you could save only one thing: either the last known copy of Shakespeare’s plays or some anonymous human being. What would you do?”​
    —Bohemian playwright Sheldon Flender (Rob Reiner) to struggling young writer David Shanyne (John Cusack) in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway.​
     
    Baraka_Guru, Aug 8, 2013
    #20
    • Like Like x 1
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