That's Unbookening Hero Jessa Crispin of Bookslut, in the process of moving from Chicago to Berlin.
Bought 5 books
Got 21 to review
Checked out 14 from the library
40 in
Gave away 7 books
Donated 25
Returned 1 I borrowed
Returned 8 to library
41 out
A particularly difficult category to deal with, unbookening-wise, are books that come for whatever reason with bad memories. Don't feel like you have to share, but here's a fairly innocuous example of mine: Six weeks after I moved here, I got locked out of my apartment on a rainy night with about $10 but no phone. (I went out for pizza and the key fell off my keychain; my friend a block away was not home.) I still had the key to the downstairs door, but my genius plan to sit on my grody welcome mat and hope one of my roommates would magically come home soon failed, and I ended up calling one of those 24-hour locksmiths who advertise by sticker. They sent a dude who looked like Sacha Baron Cohen who drilled me in and then accompanied me in, yes, a sketchy van, to the ATM to withdraw an obscene amount of money for the privilege.
Do I really want to be hanging onto the book I was reading (of course I had a book with me, just nothing useful) as I was trying not to fall asleep on my own doorstep and cursing myself for the millionth time? I'm officially putting that rookie mistake behind me by packing the book off to Small Thrift Store heaven. Be thus freed of your errors.
2 comments:
Congratulations are in order! Any month you finish with fewer books than you started is a good one (though I don't count library books because they're never a part of the permanent collection.)
If it was Sacha Baron Cohen, I hope he gives you a cut of the millions of dollars he plans on making off the film featuring jokes at your expense. Seems like the polite thing to do.
I have been delighted to recently discover the Baltimore Book Thing: they'll take your books! They'll take your magazines, too! Why should I pay $2 to send a book to a (questionably) good home on Bookmooch, when I can drop it for free and be guaranteed it won't end up in a used book store? (On the other hand, the BBT is almost certainly a front for some illicit activity (how else to explain the signs asking you to under no circumstances stick your head into the next room, even to just ask a question?), so maybe I don't want to be involved in that, either.)
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