Here's some of the books, stacked in the hallway and waiting to be sorted through. It's a fairly representative sampling. Redlaw was picked up at a con; it's a good thriller reminiscent of Paul Cornell's London Calling. Nicola Griffith's Slow River is a book I hate to part with and I know there's a good chance I might reread it at some point but for now...out it goes. There's some issues of the Magazine of F&SF, and Lawrence Durrell's Clea, which was part of "I will improve myself as a writer" reading.
So far I’ve winnowed 700 or 800 books from the collection and there’s still a lot left. Not to mention there’s a storage locker holding at least another 1000. Argh.
But rather than dump them all at Value Village, I’m taking these last days to sort through them. Because some of these books are old, old friends. So I’m checking them on Amazon (and finding a few worth unexpectedly more, which is nice) and listing all the ones for sale in a spreadsheet, with a few notes and a price. A few I’m putting aside to give to specific people. There’s two boxes laid aside already for my godchildren.
My plan with the ones for sale is to give my two best friends, my brother, and my mom first crack to see if there’s any they want. (Or any that are actually already theirs, in mom’s case, since the boundary between my mom’s books and mine has been pretty fluid from time to time.)
After that, time to see if I can get a little filthy lucre for them. I’ll offer to share the spreadsheet with my writing group, students, other friends, and anyone else interested. (Drop a line here if you are.) Lots of fiction, particularly short stories, a lot of Women’s Studies texts, assorted odd bits and interesting historical stuff. The usual round of books about writing.
I’ll be blogging about some of the books as I hit them. After this comes a similar pass at all the knick-knackery I have accumulated. Not looking forward to that too much, but there’s also a good feeling, a wind-through-one’s-soul feeling that comes with shedding stuff.
I’ll keep you posted.
