Separate your must-reads from your ought-to-reads and free yourself from lingering literature you’re never going to get around to, writes Erica Munro.
Our bedroom is getting a makeover, its first since just after we moved in, 27 years ago.
It’s a big room with old, built-in cupboards, and it has an en suite bathroom, crammed with toiletries and underused cleaning stuff, so you may perhaps understand why we’ve put off the job for such a long time.
But, now, the carpet is flat and scritchy, the wallpaper scuffed, the curtains faded and the sash windows flaking, so we’re welcoming in 2023 by decamping to the spare room and finally giving the whole shebang a wee glow-up.
What with ordering carpets, sewing curtains and the like, I reckon the job’s going to take at least a couple of weeks, so the first thing I had to do was clear some temporary space for our exiled belongings.
The spare room is shelved and lined with hundreds of books. This seems like the perfect time to put on my reading specs and do a bit of a book sort-out – a curation, a dainty edit, a conscious uncoupling, if you will.
Two days later, I am still there, cross-legged on the floor, sifting through several lifetimes of books, trying to determine which I can live without, fomenting a bitter internal war between sense and sensibility (which I’m keeping), and feeling a new empathy for hoarders.
But, I have one firm rule: nothing is to go into the loft. We’ve done that so many times before, with all sorts of unwanted crap; the poor old house must suffer from permanent headache.
There’s a vast difference between a must-read and an ought-to-read
Some decisions have been easy. First into the cardboard box went the Jeremy Clarkson hardbacks, swiftly followed by dumb, novelty stuff like The Green Welly Handbook, atlases full of Yugoslavias, Czechoslovakias and Burmas, mistrusted or downright rubbish cookery books, and everything to do with diets, make-up and lifestyle.
Next came the unexpected satisfaction of cancelling some worthy works of literary fiction which neither of us have ever managed to get into.
There’s a vast difference between a must-read and an ought-to-read, and I could wait forever for the change of mindset which would be needed to have another go at them.
Furthermore, I strongly believe that nobody should continue plugging away at a work of fiction they’re not enjoying or not following, or both. After all, a novel is just somebody else’s story, no more, no less, and it’s not like we’re still at school.
The next breakthrough came in the trashing of the whodunnits. I’m growing increasingly uncomfortable – wait, “uncomfortable” is too wishy-washy. I’m growing increasingly enraged by the premise of murder as entertainment in fiction, however gorgeous the prose or genius the plotting.
I simply don’t feel the thrill of the chase, knowing that, out in the real world, real people die and grieve and cry and suffer and hurt. I don’t watch crime thrillers on TV, so why did I ever give them space on my bookshelves? It’s a (murder) mystery.
Some children’s books still have a piece of my heart
The books I’d read to my small children at bedtime had been filleted some years ago, given to my sister-in-law for her wee ones. I kept only the absolute favourites, such as Badger’s Bring Something Party, Hairy Maclary, Dr Seuss, and Winnie the Pooh, because they still hold a little piece of my heart between their covers.
Similarly, I’m keeping the Narnia books, Harry Potter, The Famous Five, and The Secret Seven, because they all meant a lot to me at various times in my life.
Enid Blyton’s outdated world view was unknown to me as a youngster. Instead, I got lost in her small realms; they were a welcome escape from real life which, as for most youngsters, was often difficult.
I swithered over the Horrible Histories. They seem like a grand place to start for someone of any age needing an accessible crash course in Terrible Tudors or Stormin’ Normans or the like, but, then, I guess Wikipedia serves the same purpose and takes up less room, so off they’re going.
Clarkson is destined for the recycling bin
Lastly, the teen fiction. We’ve got stacks of it, as my kids were avid readers. Seeing the books on the shelves gives me a smug glow – at least one aspect of parenting went not too badly.
I asked the family if they wanted to keep them and, unanimously, they declined. Oh, well, to every thing, there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven, as Ecclesiastes pointed out.
So, at the end of day two, there are nine big boxes of books crammed into the car – most headed for the charity shop and some (Clarkson, for example) off to the recycling centre.
It feels satisfyingly grown-up to have completed such a monster clear-out, though draining to have made so many decisions.
The bare shelves are dusted and ready for loading up. Which reminds me. There’s the tiny issue of still having to clear the bedroom and bathroom, shift the furniture, lift the carpets and clean the woodwork before the painter arrives at 8am tomorrow. It’s going to be a long night.
Erica Munro is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter and freelance editor
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