Last month, I had to move everything out of my office room—including two giant bookshelves stuffed with books and 7 office tubs filled with more books—so we could lay down insulation and carpet in an attempt to keep the room above mitten-weather temperatures. We succeeded (I’m typing this without wearing my fingerless gloves!), but the experience exposed an ugly truth: I have so many books that I can’t keep track of them.
For example, I have two copies (library bindings, both) of The Prince of Pleasure by J.B. Priestley, a Regency history reference recommended by many. I was so excited to find a copy at Powell’s bookstore in Portland this summer, and didn’t recall the excitement I felt when I found it online the summer before. Duh. I have two copies of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman, one I know I bought full-price. My copy of James Scott Bell’s Plot and Structure is shot through with my hand-written notes, but it made so little impression, apparently, that I put the title on my Amazon wishlist for Christmas, and now I have a pristine second copy. And don’t get me started on the romances that I get a copy of at some conference or luncheon and never get around to reading and then buy when I see it on sale.
This cannot stand. At the least, I should remember which books I buy—and read them. Thoughts of economic downturn have helped me pull more fiction from the library instead of the bookstores/Amazon, but I as I often mark up my nonfiction copies and, often, the fiction that shows me something I could do with sentence and story, I won’t stop going to bookstores. One of my romance-writing-group colleagues suggests creating a “home library” system, a simple database. But that would require updating, not to mention remembering to check it when I’m making those spur-of-the-moment purchases at Powell’s.
Today I’ve thought of an alternative: Give them away. Many authors have giveaways on their blogs when they are promoting their latest books. So when I sell the regency, we’ll have a reference-book jamboree. And when I sell the contemporary, we’ll have a romance-novel spree. The books will go in their own special office tub for now. I might hold onto that extra Plot and Structure, though. We’ll see.
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