The Book Pile

I waved good bye to our household goods; all boxed up and on their way to California. Actually it was 7 Aug 2014 but this is close enough. Since then, they were delivered. Shifted around several times. Several things have been relocated to storage since the house was under construction . A few things made the trip across the ocean and have (are finding) new homes.

Which still leaves the house here with its invaders (the four footed kind) along with the more than occasional house guest and friend. It also explains why I still have too much furniture here, a partial closet of clothes, knitting supplies and three storages + the garage full of what could most politely be called junk.

George has found a local agency that is similar to the Goodwill/Salvation Army. They take just about anything that can be redistributed, refurbished, gifted or sold. They don’t, however, take books.

You knew I was going somewhere with this didn’t you?

It was on 8 August last year that I asked everyone to guess how many books I had left over that needed to be redistributed. No guess below 4000 was allowed and I took pictures of my former studio. The offer was for a dinner gift certificate

Nana guessed an oodleplex
Cat bet me it was less than in her house (I have been there – it is a close call).
Alison picked 4444 (cost of a hearing aid)
Carmen 4567
April – 6289
Isobel – 4882
Mary – 5777
Steven – 5280 (feet in a mile)
Christian – 4997
Kim – 7012

and I started dropping off books anywhere I could manage
9 Aug – 148, 10 Aug 130 = 278, 11 Aug – 67 = 345, 12 Aug 72= 417. It wasn’t till Oct that I managed to off-load a dozen books on Zandra = 429,

And then I headed off to LonCon, Denver, the Legend, the Oasis (Chaos of the Seas), Serenade, before bopping to both Berkeley and Germany before the end of the year.

Won’t get into this year’s travel summary, but over the course of this past year I have managed to drop off another 537 books. Hardly a dent in the pile at 954 which is still looming mightily in the studio.

just a close up of the disaster..

just a close up of the disaster..

from the window size

from the window size

most of the children's books

most of the children’s books

as you enter the room

as you enter the room

Starting today – I am going to make a concerted effort and see how much I can diminish the pile in the next ten days. Secondly – if you want to compare the size of the pile – 8 Aug 2014 is the original post.

I am also going to reopen the bidding on guestimating the number of books. For those of you already in the running – I am going to honor last year’s effort at the end of the run. If you want to enter the new bit of insanity – please feel free to do so as you could be a double winner. Cat? I am assuming that you still want all numbers above the highest bidder to infinity? In any case, please add your vote to the comments on this post.

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4 Responses to The Book Pile

  1. Stu says:

    7950 this assume the 954 to date equates to 1% per month

  2. Cat says:

    Mmmm…why not? I have been debating where we might put another bookcase. I don’t think people realise how many books can be packed into a small space 🙂

  3. Steven Hirsch says:

    Are we still well above the 4000 lower limit?

    • Holly says:

      There isn’t a lower limit – but considering about a thousand books that I managed to count (plus probably some that didn’t get counted) have left without making much of a dent in the pile…. It wouldn’t seem wise to guess below 4K

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