Dirtbag Writer

Decluttering the Bookshelf and Discovering the Unread

Posted on 15. Mar, 2010 by Writer in On Writing

Spring weather combined with my new obsession of reading minimalist blogs has inspired me to declutter my apartment.  Heeding the wisdom of Leo Babuta of Zen Habits I am tackling one area of me casa at a time versus my normal behavior of tearing the entire house apart, followed by a freak out and then a month long attempt of getting my house back in order.  This week, one bookshelf, a day at a time…

As I browse through the first shelf I wonder why it is so difficult to get rid of books.  I can toss out clothes as easy as I toss out the trash but there is something about books that just keeps me holding on.  I decided to attack the center shelf first and it held a surprising amount of books I had never finished.

I found it hilarious that each and every one of these books still had a bookmark in it – a bookmark from Between the Covers in Telluride, a piece of stationary from the Double Tree, another bookmark from my favorite used bookstore in the world, Magers & Quinn in Minneapolis, and a plane ticket stub – San Jose, Costa Rica to Houston.

Instead of shipping these books out the door they will now find a place in the queue on the ridiculous high stack beside my bed.

A History of Women Volume 1 – Front Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints

I bought A History of Women in the West during my Red Tent, DaVinci Code, Pope Joan phase.  It is the first book in five-volume series detailing the history of women from the ancients through the twentieth century – I had aspired to read all five.  A bookmark holds my place on page 15.  Obviously I found fiction more intriguing than the real history of women.

Guns, Germs, and Steels

I guess I am slightly bitter about my non-liberal arts education.  At the time I thought majoring in Molecular Biology was super cool (which it was sort of), but I sadly did not get to take any real electives in college.  I only had time in my schedule for the required English class and I missed out in all sorts of classes that I would find fascinating now like Anthropology, World Religions, and Middle Eastern History.  When I worked at the University I entertained the idea of going back to school and taking all the courses I missed out on (since I got half off tuition) but a friend of mine told me to read Guns, Germs, and Steel instead, which I did and got to page 95 – not bad.

A People’s History of the United States

I had wanted to read A People’s History forever since opening it up and reading the first chapter in someone’s bathroom at a party quite a few years back.  I finally picked the book up in an airport last year and got so thoroughly bummed out by chapter 4 I haven’t picked it back up.  The book tells the stories of American history from different points of view – like the view from the Native Americans, the working poor, or America’s women.  Hearing the story of Columbus from the point of view of the Arawak Indians is enough to make you want to go back to grade school and vomit all over the history texts.

A History of God

Karen Armstrong’s A History of God had totally enthralled me for the first 51 pages and then I am not really sure what happened.  I set the book down probably five years ago or so I think -  maybe distracted by all the others on my stack during my Buddhist book phase and haven’t picked it up until this moment.

Hmmm I am now curious what all these books hold.

Tags: Books, DeCluttering, Minimizing, Reading