Sunday, March 5, 2023

Putting My Books in Alphabetical Order

 


A month ago, after looking for a book, I decided to re-shelve of my physical books in alphabetical order by author.  In the process, I removed three boxes of books which are now on a table in the living room. After a couple of friends get a look at them, I will donate the remaining books.

This year I am turning 70, so just as at 65, I am giving away any book I do not think I will re-read or use as a reference in the next decade. The exception is the authors I am or have been obsessed with. If I have a complete collection of their works, I keep them all.  Dante Aligheri, Hannah Arendt,  Vasily Grossman, Mark Helprin, Kazuo Ishiguro, Bernard-Henri Levy, C.S. Lewis, George Orwell, and Timothy Snyder.  

I think I had 800 books a decade ago. I am below 400 now. I have many ebooks, but storage for them is invisible, so no problem with wall space.  In five years, maybe I will try something else.   














August 1914 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s August 1914 is the first volume of his The Red Wheel cycle of novels an epic attempt to explain how Russia slid in...