Why I've Gotten Rid of Half of My Books

Hi Everyone! Happy Monday!

The title may be a little overkill, I don't think I've gotten rid of half of my books, but I have gotten rid of a good chunk of them. My bookshelf is nowhere near empty, but it isn't as crammed full of books as it once was.

There are quite a few reasons why I purged so many of them. Not reading anymore or that I hate reading, aren't in that list (thankfully), but the list is longer than one might expect.

I'm currently 21 years old, soon turning 22. I'm at a point in my life where I'm finishing up school, searching for a career, and hoping to move out within the next 9-10 months. I'm almost a completely different person, than I was when I started Turning Pages. Being only 16 at the time, a lot of my interests have changed and a lot of my opinions as well.

Going through my books recently, I realized I wasn't interested or excited about reading many of them. Some just were too young for me, some had content in them that I would have enjoyed a few years, and some I just never got around to, simply because they didn't excite me as much as other books did.

I'm also hoping to move out with the next year, meaning I won't be able to bring all these books with me. I don't even think I would want to. I think it would be overwhelming to take the entire bookshelf crammed with books to my new place.

Besides growing out of books, I was also running out of room. I didn't want my bookshelf to be crammed, nor did I want books to be toppling onto the floor. It just didn't look very neat, and it was also hard to keep up with the dusting. If you wanted to dust, you would have to take them all out of the shelves, which takes forever. And if you didn't dust frequently enough, everything would be covered in a layer of dust.

So where did they GOOO?!?

They were evenly dispersed between friends, Half Price Books (in exchange for my textbooks), and Goodwill.

Am I getting rid of more?!

Again...YES!

I still have a lot of books left. Most of which I'm dying to read, while some of which I know I can give away. I do want to read a lot of them, so I won't be getting rid of them immediately, but over time.

What about your book buying habits?

My buying habits aren't at the same point they were a few months ago or even years ago. I'm spending a lot of money on other essential things in life and college, and I also don't have as much time to read at the moment. 

Once I have a full time career, and have settled into a daily life routine, I will have more time to read, and enjoy picking up a new book or two every once in a while. 

Until then I'm restricting myself to the books I have, and get through those one at a time.

This was something that's been on my mind for a while now. Having so many books that are unread, is a lot of pressure. You spend so much money on these books, and they're just sitting there, waiting for someone to crack them open.

While I do still feel some of that pressure now, with almost having a deadline to read them all, I feel a lot better than I did before. I shouldn't be forcing myself to read books I bought years ago, that I know I won't enjoy. Or prevent myself from buying books, just because I have unread books from three years ago.

Have you gotten rid of any books lately? What were your reasons behind doing so?