FB Reminder: I am away on vacation right now. This post has been scheduled ahead of time.
I won’t be moderating comments until end of August 2009. Thanks for your patience!
Lisa Joy said: Which books are you keeping, Minimalist FB? Tell me.. TELL ME!
Umm.. none. *sheepish*
I thought about keeping my favourites like the Anne Bishops, Kinsellas, Eddings, so on and on, but in the end, I dug deep into my soul and asked myself if I really wanted to lug all of these heavy books in an already limited suitcase space across the world.
Took me 3 seconds to decide to get rid of all of them. I was a demoness in cleaning out my room!!!
The only books I kept were:
- Manga I absolutely cannot part with (Usagi Yojimbo & Lone Wolf and Cub) — Back me up on this Revanche….
- My yearbooks (Call me sentimental…)
- 3 books I couldn’t find in e-books and were out of print
Everything else that could be found on (.pdf) or in an e-book, went away to live in other people’s homes.
I sorted them into “SELL” and “DONATE” piles, and let me tell you, that donate pile was 8 boxes FULL of books, even BF my Minimalist Partner in Crime was shocked.
BF: That’s a LOT of stuff. FB: Umm.. I like to read. You saw my old pictures. I was fat. How did you think I got fat? By reading. BF: Are you telling me that books made you fat? How is that possible? Reading burns more calories. FB: No. Eating chocolate while reading a lot as an inactive child made me fat. I didn’t read enough to burn off 800 calories every hour. Trust me.
I sold about 30% of the books I owned. Any book that is fairly recent, hard covered mostly, in like-new condition and fun went into my bags and I trudged downtown to sell them all.
Made $180 total, but I think my back is screaming in protest from what I had to lug around.
Note to self: Bring a suitcase on rollies next time.
By the way, a little tip from me to you, used bookstores are surprisingly picky about what they take.
They love books on Philosophy & obscure subjects I never read, so I was SOL there.
I could have definitely sold them on Amazon, but unluckily for me, I live in Canada, and shipping up here is a b*tch on crack. If I was in the States, no problem. Shipping is pretty cheap for y’all, but not up here.
Plus, I’m only there for a short period of time. I don’t have time to be listing and selling suitcases full of books just to make a couple of dollars, when living in a different city.
I just want(ed) the clutter GONE.
In fact, I’m itching to go back and donate more….
TWO FB GIVEAWAYS THIS MONTH!
- Becoming a Minimalist: The Journey & Primer
- Trying to get rid of things, is futile.
- You don’t need a bigger home. You just need less stuff.
- How to live fabulously, for free, paying $0/month.
- Not everyone sees decoration as being warm or beautiful. Some see it as clutter.
LeMeow
on May 8th, 2010
@ 7:04 AM:
Hey FB, did you find free PDFs to replace the books you donated/sold or did you have to buy the PDFs? I want to do what you do but I feel like my books are my decorations; It's hard to let go!
FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com
on May 8th, 2010
@ 1:08 PM:
I ended up using Google Books, The Gutenberg Project and that’s about it…
I am waiting to read the other e-books or buy them, until I get an e-book reader (Sony?) and then I’ll buy all the remaining books on there.