One of the things that has been hardest about looking at the books I have and what I want to keep or not is that I have a lot of books that were either gifts or they were recommended by people I love. And sometimes I see that as letting them down by not reading the book or getting rid of the book. Do you ever feel like that? “Someone gave this to me so I have to keep it.”

I decided when approaching my shelves that I would do two things. The first is that I would remind myself that if someone gave me a book, sure they wanted me to read it. But they also care about me and care about my happiness. Sometimes that’s hard to wrap my head around, but this is going to be a slow process, so it’s fine if I have to come back to a shelf a couple times. So, now I’ve gone through one book case and I have a stack of books that I know I’ve not read or that I know I won’t re-read.

The second hack I’m using is from this blog. Now that I’ve got this stack, I’m going to open the ones I haven’t read and read a couple pages. If they catch me, they can go back on the shelf but if they don’t, they’ll stay in the ‘thanks for your service’ box with the books I know I won’t re-read.

You’ll see from the stack there are a fair amount of graphic novels and romances in the pile. I don’t really read graphic novels anymore, and while I have been reading romance, I’ve been reading some of the spicier contemporary ones. But, this first step is done. I have a stack of books, almost ready to be donated so that they can be someone else’s treasure.

Have you thought about unhauling your shelves? What do you think would be the hardest part about it for you?