true confessions of a bibliophile

no surprise by now, if you've been following my blog for any amount of time, that i love books.  new, old, written in, dog-eared...i don't have a problem letting go of material possessions except when it comes to...books.  so this weekend i hit it hard; cleaned the shelves; did a brutal downsizing.  "do i love this book?  will i read it again?  is it beautiful or useful?  does it have special meaning?"  if the book did not get a resounding "yes" to all of those questions, it became part of the "donate" pile. (this took longer than projected due to all of the interesting findings that were inside the books, creating their own pile--receipts, ticket stubs, bookmarks, leaves, favorite quotes...such stuffings can reveal a lot about a person). at any rate,  i consoled myself with the fact that tomes that got even one "yes" got to stay forever.  the results?  my bookshelves are beautiful!  the resale value?  not so hot.  let's just say that two bursting bags of sentimentality scored me exactly $16.  it's always worth a try though, because you never know what a bookstore is going to want.  it's surprising.  they didn't want a beautiful barely-used hardcover about the life of dorothy sayers, for example, but "the tale of benjamin bunny" made it in.  who knew? so, since my love for and discovery of the public library's depth and width, i realize i can get most titles there and save my at-home shelf space for truly special pages.  there's always room for more...