Getting rid of old favourites is easier said than done. What books would you find hard to part with?
House of books … a book collector assesses his treasures. Photograph: Helen H Richardson/Denver Post via Getty Images
Too many books: they have to be culled. It's a cry that echoes through my house every few months, usually when a stalagmite of them topples on somebody's toe. The last cull involved packing my daughter's childhood into eight boxes – a melancholy task, cheered only by the willingness of her old primary school to take them, sight unseen, for the Christmas fair. This time, more drastic action was needed. Instead of riffling through the piles on the floor, I decided to work from the top.
Up on the most inaccessible shelf, where the cobwebs join ceiling to wall, was nearly three foot of reclaimable space, aka the collected works of Charles Dickens.
Now I love Dickens, and wouldn't be without copies of Bleak House, Great Expectations and David Copperfield. But the ones I actually read – have ever read – are in handy paperback editions. When my husband decided to make Barnaby Rudge a holiday project, he downloaded the Project Gutenberg text to his iPad.
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Up on the most inaccessible shelf, where the cobwebs join ceiling to wall, was nearly three foot of reclaimable space, aka the collected works of Charles Dickens.
Now I love Dickens, and wouldn't be without copies of Bleak House, Great Expectations and David Copperfield. But the ones I actually read – have ever read – are in handy paperback editions. When my husband decided to make Barnaby Rudge a holiday project, he downloaded the Project Gutenberg text to his iPad.
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