Marie Kondo, Book Purges, and Creating Your Perfect Library

It’s February. 2019 is no longer a newborn year but a toddler crawling around. The discussion about decluttering for the New Year, however, is still alive and well thanks to author and star of the Netflix show, Marie Kondo. And the place I’ve been seeing it the most has been in the form of articles with a Douglas Adams-esque “don’t panic” headline about how Marie Kondo is not going to come for your books.

Decluttering is really difficult, practically and emotionally particularly for bibliophiles like myself. We tend to get very emotionally invested in our books, hence all the articles telling us to chill out.  On one hand, it’s important to be borderline ruthless when getting rid of stuff. On the other, it’s super important to have self-compassion. Getting rid of stuff is not supposed to be an act of self-flagellation. Like with the vast majority of life, it’s about finding the balance that works for you.

I have never read Marie Kondo – although my sister has – nor have I watched her TV show. But I do have a reasonably large library, a little over 960 books as I’m writing this. More importantly though, it is a curated library. I do not have hundreds of books because I’ve kept all of them. I do book purges every year or two, regardless of if I’m moving or not. The most epic was Book Purge 2015 when I got rid of somewhere between 100 and 200 books in a long weekend. This is not a guide to following the KonMari method to deal with books. Instead, it’s some guidelines for curating your books, from a booklover.

Reasons to Keep Books

Rereading

This seems self-explanatory. If you are likely to read it again, keep it. I reread books. Not all of them, but many, and possibly even most of them. There is no reason to get rid of something you are highly likely to use again. And you don’t want to get rid of books only to end up realizing that you still want them and then have to rebuy them. This has happened to me a couple of times and it sucks.

A subset of this is keeping books as reference material. Everything might be on the internet, but it can be easier to find it in your library than online and if a book has information you think you’ll need again, it’s probably worth keeping around. I keep a lot of history books for this reason.

Personal Value

Sometimes, people will give you books, and it doesn’t matter, emotionally, if you get rid of them. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s true. Others you will keep forever, regardless of if you reread it or look at it again, because it means something to you. The books I have in my library that I’ve owned the longest I got when I was four as a birthday present from my pre-school best friend. I haven’t spoken to her since I started kindergarten nearly 25 years ago, but I still have those picture books.

Collections

There are books I own simply to complete a series or a specific collection. I am a completist. I like having every book in a series or collection, whether I like all them or not. For example, I own all 36 books in the original Dear America run - a series of middle-reader books set during important historical events as told from the perspective of young women. Some I love and have reread numerous times, including as an adult, and some I’ve read once or maybe twice. But it is a collection, and one I’m proud to have.

The Book Itself Is the Point

There are books I own, not just for their content, but because of what they are as documents. This is almost solely confined to my history books, where, to get super meta, they are both books about history and historical documents in it of themselves. A Century of Dishonor by Helen Hunt Jackson is both a history of the mistreatment of Native Americans and an important historical document as it was published in 1881. In that case, part of the point is the book itself as an object.

Grey Area – Books You Will Never Read Yet Can’t Get Rid Of

This one is difficult. There are books I own that I’m sure I’ll read eventually – I really will make it through A Passage to India one of these days. And there are a few I’m 99 percent sure I won’t, namely A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and Middlemarch by George Eliot. I highly, highly doubt I will read these. I generally dislike the prose style and there is no actual emotional attachment to them. These two are always on the chopping block when I do a book purge, and yet I still own them.

To be honest, since for me there are only two of these, I don’t feel too bad about keeping them. Two books won’t make or break anything, and I can always purge them later. But if there are a bunch of books like this in your library it’s probably worth being more strict with yourself about it.

Reasons to Get Rid Of Books

Not Your Kind of Book

I will preach that people need to try books that are outside of their comfort zone or “type” forever. Books are about seeing stories beyond your own, and trying new types of stories is not only important but more interesting. But, once you’ve tried something, and made an informed decision that it’s just not for you, there is no reason to keep it around. For me, that’s more recent bro-fantasy. I’ve read and enjoyed many bro-fantasy books, but recently there are some I’ve started and went “hard pass.” I can’t do another “white lower-class hero afoul of the law in faux-Medieval Europe” fantasy book. I just can’t.

 It’s Bad

Sometimes books are just bad. Even when you wish they weren’t, or other people or reviews sang their praises. I’ve gotten rid of my copy of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child because, well, it’s a bad story. I don’t like it and am under zero obligation to keep it, massive Harry Potter fan or not.

It’s Served its Purpose

There are books that you love, that you’ve reread and were important to you and then, you move on with life. I loved The Babysitters Club books in elementary school. I had dozens and dozens of them and remember many random details about those books to this day. And I got rid of all of them before I started high school, because I was done with them. These, I think, are books one should thank, as I’ve heard Marie Kondo suggests people do. They have given you something and now that you are done, you can get rid of them with gratitude and move forward with life.

Arigato, BSC.

These are things I’ve used over the last two decades (yeah, I’m old enough to have been a book person for multiple decades now) to winnow and hone my books into a large, but extremely personal and thought-out library. It’s not perfect. There are books where I’m not quite sure why I have them, and others I miss despite having gotten rid of them. But by and large it works, at least for me. I agree with the KonMari ethos that one’s possessions should have a reason for being there, including books. But that doesn’t mean you need to get rid of most, or even any of your books. A library is a library not just because it’s a pile of books, but because of the intention and thought behind it.