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I'm moving in 16 days to another city. I calculated things last week and this will be my tenth move in just under 11 years (not including the time that I stayed on my friend's floor for three weeks because I was homeless).Moving seems to be in the air this spring. Denise is moving across the country which means packing up her rainbow bookshelves. Iliana announced last week on Bookgirl's Nighstand that she's moving to Austin and now has to pack up all her books. Leila at Bookshelves of Doom bought a house recently and is moving too. We live in different cities (and in my case a different country) but we all have one thing in common - we have a lot of books to pack.
It never fails that the first thing I start to pack is books. The number of boxes ebbs and flows. At some point I purged almost all my college textbooks. I've gotten rid of cookbooks I bought on clearance but never used. But there are books that have been with me since the very first move - J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, my very battered copy of L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. It would be easy to say that I pack books first because they are so important to me but that's mostly a lie. I pack books first because aside from the kitchen they yield the greatest number of boxes and well, they are easy to pack and make me feel like I'm being productive. It pains me to admit it but books are relatively low use. Even though I read a lot, I don't need all of my books accessible for a month before I move. Erin at The Life and Times of Me agrees.
Only 2 to 3 are necessary for daily living so the rest of them can go in boxes and then come out just as easily if I do in fact jinx myself. Also, for normal people packing books would maybe be a morning activity, but it has so far involved 12 boxes for me.
One thing about packing books, particularly is unlike me you don't move on average once per year, is that you realize you've accumulated a lot of them. Moving books just to clean the shelves had Char wondering if they had a library or bookstore?
Books were stacked on top of each other and next to each other. Soon, my entire bed was littered with books. It came close to overflowing! So the rest which had yet to be taken out had to be placed on the floor. And that was just my bookshelf. I had yet to clear out the rest of the places where I stuffed books because my bookshelf was full.
Sometimes you might wonder if you've accidentally fed them after midnight and thus caused them to breed. More often than not people end up purging some of them (possibly only a precious few but purging is purging).
The Living Room Closet Purge is truly essential to the pre-packing preparation as this is where we keep our books. Lots and lots of books. Some of them are just going to have to go! Only the most beloved and needed will stay. I’m putting my game face on.
Feminist Housewife
Purging is not easy.
I'm trying really hard to be firm with myself. I have too many paperback books. But which ones can I part with? Sure, I haven't re-read that book for at least three years, and I really don't want to re-read it anytime soon. But still! It's by one of my favorite authors, and I have most of her books...
Life's a Banquet.
Grace in the Chaos offers some general moving advice, including why she enjoys packing books. And no, I don't think it makes her a freak at all.
Books are also among the first things I unpack after I move. It eliminates a lot of boxes and it makes me feel settled, as if the new place really must be mine if my books are there. (Not to mention that it's far easier to procrastinate unpacking if books are readily accessible.) Diana takes a different approach. The last thing she unpacks is her books because that way she's saving saving the best for last.
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
