Pack, Read, or Toss

It’s only six weeks until I move to my downsized home in Florida where I will grow old and gray and full of sleep. Although I have been ruthlessly shaking out the chafe from my bookshelves, I am being told that I should bring all of my books since there will be sufficient room. Of course I’ve dumped ten boxes of books already and looking at my still-full bookshelves you’d never know it.

Right now the criteria is still: if it’s a duplicate; if it’s on my iPad already; if it’s available for the iPad; if I already read it; if the print is too small to ever read it; if I can’t imagine why I have a copy of what looks like a waste of reading time.

Do you ever weed out your bookshelves? I wonder: I have a book here I bought in college that I still haven’t read: should I keep it now after moving it around with me for the last fifty years?

Although the current move date is the middle of April, there are many external factors that might have me putting off the date until the end of the summer. I’m actually ready to go but a little delay will, of course, take some of the pressure off. Then again, it might be good to get it over with. If there is a delay, I will probably try to harvest as much reading from my paper and ink bookshelves as I can to save on the moving.

Here is my March 2016 reading pool. You probably notice that it is still loaded with eBooks so I  may make some substitutions along the way.

1. The Automobile Club of Egypt — Alaa Al Aswany *
2. Willard & His Bowling Trophies — Richard Brautigan *
3. The Lost Scrapbook — Evan Dara
4. Mascara: A Novel —Ariel Dorfman *
5. The Big Money — John Dos Passos
6. A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism — Slavenka Drakulic *
7. Independence Day — Richard Ford *
8. Middle C — William H. Gass *
9. J — Howard Jacobson *
10. The Summer Book — Tove Jansson *
11. The Bear Went Over the Mountain: A Novel — William Kotzwinkle
12. The Sleep Garden — Jim Krusoe *
13. Complete Stories — Clarice Lispector *
14. Goth Girl Rising — Barry Lyga *
15. Map to the Stars — Jen Malone *
16. Temple of Dawn — Yukio Mishima *
17. Cloud Atlas — David Mitchell *
18. So You Don’t Get Lost in the Neighborhood — Patrick Modiano *
19. The Fishermen: A Novel — Chigozie Obioma *
20. The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis — Max Shulman * [stories]
21. The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer — Neal Stephenson *
22. Necropolis: A Novel — Jeet Thayil *
23. Infinite Jest — David Foster Wallace  *
24. The Fortune of the Rougons — Émile Zola *
25. Journey Into the Past — Stephan Zweig *