Well, I managed to get through more shelves in the studio, both closets, the upper cupboards and three bins of yarn. Since by that time I was throughly sick of the mess, I started on the back hall.
Several years ago we put a major bookcase in the back hall. I lovingly placed some books on the shelves and filled all the gaps with various stuffed animals, musical instruments and ornamental things. The Judaica went in the glass fronted cabinet and the cookbooks in the corner section. Over the last ten years those shelves have filled. First completely, then with paperbacks doubled and tripled up on many of the shelves. The YA section overflowed into the Cookbooks. The travel books had expanded from the living room and invaded all my medical reference on the bottom shelf and dust settled happily over the whole thing.
My first pass through was pretty brutal. All the medical references older than 10 years (other than Gray’s Anatomy which never goes out of date) are leaving as are 90+% of the mysteries, most of the romances and a lot of the junk fiction. I am hanging onto many of the hardbacks (which I no longer buy) as well as the Urban Fantasy (which doesn’t contain lovingly described vampires. I on the side of not buying sparkles). I now have several hundred books on both the terrace table and on the living room ledge backing up the knitting and sewing mags.
Yes, I know that I could make something on them in Berkeley if I wanted to haul them along. But really – given a weight allowance, if I want to make money bringing zauberball would be a lot smatter for the kilo.
Of course knitting needles!
If you’re going downtown, just take as many as you can carry at a time to the give/take bookshelf in the Neugasse. We’ve always seen that people love to pick books up from there.
(And, you’re inspiring me with your cleaning up-and-out stories. I just have to get to a point where I can have the time to devote to such a project!)
Moving back to the states?
@Denise
been doing that for a while, but there is not always shelf space! The good thing is that I seem to be the only one dropping off English language books so they do seem to disappear rather quickly. Tourists I think
@Holly
Yes! We’ve found that, too. Not sure about the tourists…I’m not sure many of them know about this bookshelf, but there sure are plenty of people in HD who speak/read English who know about it.
How about contacting the library at the Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut? Maybe they have a giveaway shelf there if they don’t need the books for the library collection.
Keep well. and don’t throw out too much!
You know I love books, but a responding YES! To the Zaiberball.
:-).
Dust settling happily… Laughing! Boy can I relate. Too much.
Makes sense. Any cruises lined up in the future?
@Alison
Oh yar – we have dirt and dustballs and this morning a mouse….
@Holly
OW… I’m sorry! We had them in the garage for awhile; no fun at all, good luck. (I kept asking at the time if we could just, y’know, borrow a cat or something.)
Recently I was told about someone who brought an entire container load of yarn to Australia with her when she left Germany. The woman who told me also said, “And, when she died, her husband just dumped the lot at the rubbish dump.” Her own husband saw it but was unable to rescue it before it was covered over. The two of us were left pondering what might have been.