MarthaJeanne's discards

There are discards and discards. A fair number of the used books I buy get read and passed on. This isn't a problem, and is just tagged @ Discarded. I have several places that are happy to accept such books, usually letting me choose other books in return.

But then there are the books that have been on the shelves for years, decades even. Will anyone ever open them again? But they take up space needed for new books. I have promised myself to discard 10 of these every month, and record that here to prove that I did it.

September 2015

In the end God
Letters to Karen : on keeping love in marriage
The individual and his religion : a psychological interpretation
When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough
When Bad Things Happen to Good People

What a good idea, MarthaJeanne! I might have to join and start my own thread... Nah!

Many of my 'discards' spend some time near the front door and it takes a while to find the right person or entity to gift them to. Sometimes they get passed on to family or LT friends. Others get put into my booth at the antique mall. Occasionally, I've donated to the local library sale and now there are Little Free Libraries to place them.

I might even ignore this thread so I can't see what you are disposing. Now I want to read that first one on your list!

>3 2wonderY: 'Now I want to read that first one on your list!'
No, you don't. 1950s escatology rewarmed in the 1960s. These books are ones that are landing in the paper recycling.

One of the 10 books I took off the shelf will make it back there because I ended up rereading it - picked it up and couldn't put it down.
I married you
I need to finish working on the pile and then replentish to replace the one(s) I decided to keep.

The perils of handling one's books. :^)

September 2015 (b)

What is calculus about?
Baptême, eucharistie, ministère : convergence de la foi
Contemplating the word
Thoughts in solitude
Good morning - it's Margaret

For what it's worth:
The calculus book from 1961 was brought home from the boys' school after the school discarded it. Noone here does calculus these days, and if so would use a computer for most of it.

I have a copy of BEM in English, and I don't read French.

I'm not a big Merton fan, and this book is falling apart of old age.

The other two are not bad books, just past their use by dates and I have more recent books that I'd rather read.

With the colder weather, I can use my 'big' computer again, and have removed the 9 theology books from my Access data base, and renewed the label on the one book I didn't discard after all.

September discards finished.

>7 MarthaJeanne: Congratulations

My brother-in-law, a Lutheran minister, said just the other day, "I don't really need to read most of this theology stuff anymore. I know it."

There is some new stuff worth reading. And I have piles high enough that I'm very unlikely to reread most of the older stuff.

The access data base is where I give the books their call numbers, so I have to keep it up.

It's taken quite some time to get around to this this month, but I just made a first selection. I think some of them need to be entered before I can discard them.

1 The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2004.

With the web, I don't need a World Almanac any more, and if I did, this one is out of date. It is worth noting that over twice as many people have entered this one than the current one.

2 Meistergesänge Fastnachtsspiele Schwänke

3 Germania

4 Sachsenspiegel

These three are all Reclam editions which I loved as a student because they were cheap and small. Now I prefer larger print. Two we have other editions of, and they are certainly available on the web.

5 Parzival

This was the English copy. If either of us ever decides to pick it up again, we will use the MHD/NHD copy we own and not read it in English.

XXX Medieval Culture and Society

No. This is a nice selection of documents. I'll keep it for now.

Ah! I found a stack of Reclam Opera Librettos. As above, if we ever want to see the librettos again, we will get them online in fonts large enough to read.

They are

Mozart Die Hochzeit des Figaro (just German)

Mozart Die Zauberflöte

Strauß Die Fledermaus

Verdi Aida (just German)

Wagner Der fliegende Holländer

Wagner Lohengrin

Wagner Tristan und Isolde

Which makes up my 10, and then a bit more.

Well, for the record, I entered the first one, but the process is too difficult. The others are just being discarded without ever having been in LT. That's life.

October discards finished.

Ok. November.

Very painful. But I have bought more cookbooks, and two tall 80cm bookcases are all the space I have for cookbooks. Something has to give.

1 Das grüne Kochbuch
From a supermarket. three stars. This one I can manage.

2 Claire's Corner Copia cookbook
Apparently I gave this one 4 stars, but I have plenty of vegetarian cookbooks that I occasionally look at. This was acquired second hand. Bearable.

3 Ken Hom's vegetables & pasta book
I could probably bear discarding the other two I have of his as well. No, no, not today. But this one goes.

Natürlich Buchinger
Reading my review, I think I ought to look this one through again. Doesn't go this time.

4 Vegetables from an Italian Garden
Another one I gave 4 stars to and reviewed, and haven't touched since. Looks complicated. It can go.

____________

Off to get another stack.

Slow cooking properly explained : with recipes
Well, thank goodness for reviews. I wrote that it has a lot of British steamed puddings. Not going. Do I have dates? I could try the date and walnut pudding.

5 Slow Cooker Meals (121 Favorite Comfort Foods)
6 Slow Cooker Recipes : Season's Best Comfort Foods
7 Real food from your slo-cooker
8 Slow Cooker Meals : 120 Satisfying Recipes
Back when I got my first slow cooker I bought several books to use with it, but most weren't very good. There are a few worth keeping, but I can easily do without these.

9 Microwave fish cookbook
Much earlier I bought several cookbooks to try to cook with the microwave. I use it a lot, but not usually as the main method of cooking. This is the only book to have survived this long. Won't be missed.

10 One hundred bread machine recipes
11 Bread machine magic
The bread machine was my condition for being willing to move to Geneva, as I didn't think I could live on white baguettes. Our second son became very adept at using it, and baked most of our bread for the three years. But back in Vienna with excellent bakeries I don't need to bake bread regularly, and when I do, I prefer to do it by hand. The machine is down in the basement.

12 The ultimate fat-free cookbook
Let's be honest. Cutting the fat means cutting flavour.

November discards finished.

BTW, I didn't find dates and walnuts, so I substituted apricots and chestnuts. It will be done soon.

It worked. Tastes good.

You are a brave woman, MarthaJeanne, to be confronting your addiction so head 0n.

Desperation! How can I buy more books when the bookcases are all full?

I admire your dedication in describing the books you are discarding. If I stopped long enough to examine and describe each discard, I would never bring myself to let anything go! (And, like you, I need to let some go to make room for more.)

Another member has generously agreed to take four of those cook books and
13 The White Tiger

off my hands.

A few more have gone straight into the paper recycling. The rest will go to a swap library next week.

Good job!

I tried to get rid of most of my Doonesbury cartoons, but then I started to re-read them ... I'm hoping to get rid of most of them after this re-read

How did it get to be December?

I think I should get rid of some of the old cross stitch books. That will give me space for the newer knitting, spinning and weaving books.

Sounds like a smart plan!

1 Burda Stick-Lehrbuch
2 Picture it in Cross Stitch

3 200+ Holiday Quickies
It turns out this one hadn't been entered, so I have entered it to discard it.

4 Celtic Art in Cross stitch

5 Inspirational Cross-Stitch
This was a gift, and I have only kept it because of the dedication. Time to clear it out.

6 501 Cross Stitch Designs

Most of these were also some of the very first books I entered in LT. The entries looked like that, too. Enough for tonight, I'll find more in the morning.

7 Fingerpicking Werkstatt
8 Simple folk instruments to make and to play

Both had to be entered before they could be discarded.

And two more cross stitch books
9 500 cross stitch charted designs
10 The Best of Just CrossStitch

Now these had been added back when I was new to LT. They both required a lot of editing and combining.
BTW, Charts have gotten a lot easier to read in the past 20 years.

My husband and I have agreed that even if we were to wish to freshen up our MHD etc., we would need books with larger fonts. This should keep me going next month, too. Not to mention that these editions are about 40 years old, and there have certainly been new discoveries since then.

1 Gotische Grammatik
2 Die Götterlieder der älteren Edda: Auswahl
3 Altnordisches Elementarbuch
4 Mittelhochdeutsches Taschenwörterbuch

Next question:
If you have to tear the pages out of an old textbook for recycling, is it more repectfull put those pages in the old paper collection or to tear them up and feed them to my worms?

5 Kleine mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik
6 Althochdeutsch - Mittelhochdeutsch
7 Abriß der Althochdeutschen Grammatik
8 The Nibelungenlied
9, 10 Das Nibelungenlied: mittelhochdeutscher Text und Übertragung

I say feed them to the worms. Then you can have the satisfaction of seeing that they are doing some good.

>25 MarthaJeanne: Question - Are they bookworms?

No, earthworms.

Well, they still might appreciate some litter-ature.

Obviously, the straightforward way not to have to make hard decisions about discarding cookbooks would be not to buy any new cookbooks. Right? Hmmm. Not going to happen this year.

Larousse treasury of country cooking around the world

Adventures in Sourdough Cooking

Köstliche Kuchenteilchen

Ken Hom's east meets west cuisine

My husband thinks I should make supper, so I'll do the rest later.

5 Wild food
6 The cook's handbook
7 Recipes from the old mill : baking with whole grains
8 Mehlspeisen aus Österreich
9 Mrs. Beeton's Christmas book
10 Christmas : a cook's tour

I went into the medical books today and discovered
a) most of them had never been entered.
b) most of them were too old to be useful.

1 Diabetes : optimal ernährt bei Typ 1 und Typ 2
2 Reversing diabetes

3 American Diabetes Association complete guide to diabetes

4 Laborwerte : Gesundheit in Zahlen

5 Dr. Miriam Stoppard's family health guide

6 The British Medical Association complete family health encyclopedia

7 The silent passage : menopause
8 Carlton Fredericks' New low blood sugar and you
9 The Sonoma diet
10 The sugar solution

And another two books I found during the past few weeks:

11 Der Hauptmann von Köpenick
12 Curiosa iuris germanici

Those two can go to the book exchange at the recycling centre. The others are already in the paper recycling.

Der Hauptmann von Köpenick! We read it in school over 60 years ago.

Yes, I read it at University, and saw it performed at Burgtheater, only about 40 years ago. But in the very unlikely case that I would decide that I want to read it again, the library has it.

A side issue: I discovered a few books in our science fiction bookcase that had never been entered. After doing inventory we currently should have 370 books there, but 21 are not where they belong. I also found several more that needed entering.

There is also a small pile of books on the floor to get rid of. One was a duplicate. Another was missing the final pages. The rest are books that must have been brought into the house by our son, but don't interest us. As he hasn't lived here in several years, I'm not bothering to enter or keep them.

April is 2/3 gone now, so it's high time I got around to doing some discarding.

At one point I thought I might do some water colour painting. Not really likely. The books had never been entered.

1 Das schnelle Aquarell : skizzieren und malen : Urlaubsgrüße,…
2 Watercolor : a new beginning : a Holistic approach to painting
3 The big book of painting nature in watercolor
4 Basic techniques for painting textures in watercolor

Last time I was at the recycling centre I got bawled out for leaving more books than I took. I solved the problem by taking a stack of outdated guide books to tear apart and throw in the paper recycling. However, I think I have other homes for books worth saving.

The next three go straight into the paper recycling.

5 Calculus Vol. 1: Introduction with Vectors and Analytic Geometry
6 Physics (Parts I & II)
7 The new Emily Post's Etiquette

And a few more for the paper recycling

8 Sets, relations, functions
9 Applied statistics for the behavioral sciences
10 Complete Guide to Needlework

1 Kirchen auf gemeinsamem Wege
2 Bibel Sakramente Liturgie
3 A Common Calling
4 Katholisch und Evangelisch : Informationen über den Glauben
5 Evangelisch, katholisch, muß das sein?

Outdated books on ecumenism. I think it says something that for three of them, I am the only person to have entered them. One more has one other member. These are going straight into the paper recycling.

6 Glaubensverkündigung für Erwachsene
7 Was wir glauben : eine Auslegung des Apostolischen Glaubensbekenntnisses

These are a bit more popular, but I don't think I have read either one, and if I were going to read something like this in German, I would chose something more recent. Again, for the paper recycling.

8 L'anglicanisme

Again, very old, only copy on LT. When I bought it I was trying to learn French.

9 I believe in the Holy Spirit
10 I believe in the Church

These two I also have in an anthology. They are probably worth passing on, as I have a suitable venue.

I got energetic today and cleared a few boxes of books in the basement. Most of them had not been entered, and many of them got discarded without being entered. Many of these were books our son had brought home from school library book sales, which made it easy. The next box will be harder, but enough for today.

I have a worm composter down here, but I want a second one, and need space for it. Besides, it is really time to clean things up.

I need more space for new biographies. These have to go:

Little Gloria... happy at last
Testament of youth : an autobiographical study of the years 1900-1925
One child
Lucia in the age of Napoleon
The Duchess of Jermyn Street
The color of water
A child called 'It'
A Beautiful Mind

Also

The Lonely Empress
A life of John Calvin
Paulo Coelho : confessions of a pilgrim
Elisabeth : Die Seltsame Frau
Kaiserin Maria Theresia

That makes 13. I have also offered 18 books to the branch library with an India focus. We'll see what they say.

I took 19 books all tagged India to the Erdberg library today. They were glad to get them, and that gives me some badly needed space.

But I ALWAYS need space in the cookbook shelves. This month's selections won't help a lot, and there is nothing here worth shipping out of Vienna.

1 The World in your Kitchen
2 How to make Bruschette
3 Sainsbury's masterclass : step-by-step to classic dishes
4 Family Favourites
5 365 easy one-dish meals
6 365 great 20-minute recipes
7 Süße Klassiker
8 Sophie Grigson's herbs
9 Weihnachten : Die schönste Zeit zum Backen
10 Epices et aromates : mode d'emploi

Australian Women's Weekly Cookbooks (I will mail inside Europe if anyone wants these.) These are large, magazine-like paperbacks from the 1990s, 128 pages.

1 Easy Indian-style cookery
2 Sensational stir-fries
3 Easy Mexican-style cookery
4 Easy curry cookery
5 Saucery

I wouldn't mind the sauces one...

Ah, you saw this!

Hahaha I did xP

Continuing

6 Rice cookbook
7 The Best seafood recipes
8 Low-fat meals in minutes
9 The Quick-cook Book
10 Light and luscious summertime cookbook

OK calling it quits for this month, I guess. September will be late, as we will be on holiday. In England, so when we get back I will be looking for bookcase space.

No other takers?

I'll get that one off to >50 .Monkey.: next week, then. I think I have the address.

Last chance to claim more!

My shelves yell at me enough as it is! XD

I am getting rid of all the Dune books except the first. That is eight books.

Dune: complete chronology

Dune. The Butlerian jihad by Brian Herbert (1)
The Machine Crusade (Legends of Dune, Book 2) by Brian Herbert (2)
The battle of Corrin by Brian Herbert (3)
Dune. House Harkonnen by Brian Herbert (6)
Dune. House Corrino by Brian Herbert (7)
Paul of Dune by Brian Herbert (9)
Dune messiah by Frank Herbert (10)
Children of Dune by Frank Herbert (12)

OK, I found two more books down there that I will never read again, but that I don't have to ask Jerry about.

9 Time Traders
10 Eragon

For the past few years (maybe five?) I have been a 'Lesepatinn' at a local elementary school. A reading godmother. I have really enjoyed working with the children, and seeing them advance in their reading abilities has been very satisfying. In the case of certain children, I think I have made a real difference. And I do believe that that will be life changing for them. Besides, there is nothing to compare with the feeling of magic power when you have a room of over 20 children listening and paying attention while you read them a book. And this in the second decade of the 21st century!

This year I have had to opt out due to health problems. I am missing it less than I expected, probably because I really am on a rollercoaster trying to get meds sorted out to the point that I can actually predict how I will be feeling an hour from now. Added to which comes the probability that I will have to be operated on for a cataract sometime next year.

Anyway, over that period of time I have bought several books to use with the children. There is little point in these occupying shelf space here, so I need to pack them up and drop them off for the school library.

I don't think listing them here is necessary. Ten books are going into the bag.

I've got rid of over 650 since February 2015 — some sold but mostly to a couple of local charities. Part have been made up by new purchases — I'm buying faster than I can read. Even so the gaps are becoming apparent. I tell myself I can't take them with me either (depending on my mood and optimism level) to the next world or a new place in this one. Some I know I'd never read again but it's getting harder to choose.

Ours went to Geneva and back, as well as inside Vienna. Actually easier to pack and unpack than a lot of things.

Some of these I had never read. Well, now I have.

>58 MarthaJeanne: I love the term 'reading godmother'!

I just put 14 fiction books into a discard bag. Not listed here, they are going to the UNWG bazaar.

More books for the bazaar:
Michael Frayn
1 Spies
2 Plays--One

George McDonald Fraser
3-9 Various Flashman titles

Bernard Shaw
10 Candida
11 The Devil's Disciple

Picoult
12 Perfect Match

13 Der heilige Leopold

Clarke
14 Dial M for Merde

15 Half of a Yellow Sun

The bag is at least as heavy as it ought to get, so enough for now.

Cookbooks again

Culinaria :China in German. That one alone weighs a ton.

The Time-Life American regional cookbook

365 all-American favorites
365 ways to cook fish and shellfish
365 ways to cook vegetarian
An American series from the 1990s. I've kept some that have recipes we use now and again.

Traité du pois chiche
Le mezzé libanais : l'art de la table festive
Two books in a case. I still think I'd really enjoy these if I could read them.

Classic Indian cooking
Classic Indian vegetarian and grain cooking
My reviews for these both read "Julie Sahni is for the days when you want to spend hours and hours in the kitchen. Her recipes are good, but much more complicated than most other Indian Cookbooks." Maybe that's why I never use them.

Seductions of rice

Good job. Now I can shelve my recent purchases.

My To Read collection is now at 282. Overlap between that and Food and Gardens is 14. Luckily only about half of those are cookbooks, but some of them are quite big, so I'd better plan on another cookbook cull soon. Unless, of course I show great restraint and don't buy any more next year.

Yes, of course, that's what I'll do!!

You all believed that, right? That I wouldn't buy any new cookbooks this year? I haven't yet, but the year is still young.

I stood in front of the shelves for a while this evening and came up with a few.

For the paper recycling:

1) The Americans
2) National Geographic's Guide to the National Parks (1992)
3) The Waterways of Britain and Europe (1990)
4) Vienna by MAK

The rest will be passed on:
Food
5) The vegetarian barbecue
6) Japanese Cookery
7) Fruits and Berries for the Home Garden
8) A Feast of Scotland
9) Oh, Fudge!

Other
10) Aeneid
(Don't tell Tim. I was surprised to see it on the shelf. I don't think I ever read it. It has my unmarried name in it.)

I've added a few more books to the bag for school. A few other German children's books wandered from the living room down to the small selection of children's books we are holding on to.

>68 MarthaJeanne: On the plus side, I took a bag of books to school today.

>66 MarthaJeanne: On the minus side, I bought several books today including two cookbooks. I wasn't supposed to let my to reads go above 290. Currently at 286 so ... OK, one of the cookbooks is already entered. I just have to change details to show that I now own it. But I saw this other great cookbook. And Frick's is closing their branch on Kärtnerstraße, so they are selling off lots of books at very low prices. And saw another great book marked way down somewhere else. I mean, what is a person supposed to do?

I guess I'll start entering the first few books.

"what is a person supposed to do?"

No clue.

But you are working (generally) in the direction you desire.

Just discovered that I already had one of them. Oh, well, one less to try to squeeze in.

Not just books. I bought 9 new turtlenecks this week, so 9 things also went from the closet.

1) 3 Volume Italian Cross stitch encyclopedia of unbound magazines that isn't entered
2) Klöppeln und Occhi
3) This is Crocheting
4) The Macramé Book
5) An unworked labyrinth book not entered

Just a short look at my needlework books. Does anyone still do macramé? Did anyone still do Macramé in the 90s?

6) The social history of art : Prehistoric, Ancient-Oriental, Greece and Rome, Middle Ages (vol. 1)
7) The social history of art : Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque (vol 2)
8) Lust auf Mehr... Mini Cakes (already spoken for)
9) The Secular and Ecclesiastical treasuries
10 American Indian design and decoration

1 The power and the glory

2 Désirée - the German copy
3 Snow flower and the secret fan
4 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
5 Der Da-Linzi-Code

These are all in the bag for passing on until my husband gets around to taking it to the office. Or in the pile for the book exchange at the Mistplatz until we go there again.

6 Renouveler le culte
No, my French is never going to be up to this. Also out of date. Recycling.

7 Praise, a door to God's presence
8 The children's Jewish holiday kitchen
Well, these two aren't French, but even older. Neither was that wonderful to begin with. Recycling.

9 The Celts This was written 50 years ago. Recycling.

10 Children's object lesson sermons : based on the Common Lectionary Year B Ugh! Probably also ugh 30 years ago.

To Read count is 280.

I'm very proud of myself. I went to the local branch today to return my books instead of the big main library. I even managed to leave without borrowing any more books to add to the pile I already have out.

Of course, they just weeded out a lot of books that hadn't been borrowed for 7-10 years, and were giving them away. Make that 284.

I'm very proud of you as well. For limiting yourself to 4.

This has been a funny month. And now, on top of everything else, my back is acting up. I keep waking up to a bayonette in my hip. Luckily the painkiller usually deals with most of it. I know that the chances are good that the problem will resolve itself in a week or two, but in the meantime, sorting out books is not a top priority.

I'll try again next month.

Back to the cookbook shelves:

1 Sweetmeats as they are made in Venice
2 Fish as it's cooked in Venice

Souveniers of a visit to Venice. Book(let)s are 20 years old.

3 All the Recipes Pasta of Italian Cuisine
4 The Complete Illustrated Tuscan Cookery
Similar, just bigger.

5 Food FAQs: Substitutions, Yields & Equivalents

6 Kürbis bringt Farbe in Ihre Küche
7 Kürbis bringt Farbe in Ihre Küche, Teil 2

Published by farmers to help sell more pumpkins.

8 Fishfinder
"180 european fishes in 26 european languages"

9 Prue Leith's Dinner Parties

10 Brot backen

11 Memories with food at Gipsy House
My recollection is that this was a good read.

So, June

1 Quickcheck French

2 Duftpelargonien : auswählen und genießen
Yes, I still shop at Frau Bach's, but don't need this.

3 Nie mehr Schnecken
If only it had helped!

4 Ungarisch für die Reise

5 Recipes for an Arabian Night

6 Book of Lavender

7 The Basil Book

A Multitude of Mints
Whoops, I think I'll keep this one.

8 The World of Rosemary
I remember the day I bought this. I had looked forward to visiting Caprilands for a long time, and made the reservation. Neither Jerry nor Mom was enthusiastic, and the baby was sickening. I did it, but it wasn't as enjoyable as it should have been.

9 This Little Puffin

10 Confessions of a Sneaky Organic Cook

11 1001 Foods

5 books by Lynda La Plante

6 Our endangered values
7 The Psychology of Computer Programming

I offered a friend two knitting books for babies. She turned them down. I won't use them again.

8 Itty-bitty nursery

Um. I guess I'll keep the other a bit longer. I gave it a really good review including, 'This is a keeper.'

But in putting that one back I found:

9 Getting started in Punch needle
10 Eco colour

I found 10 books to discard, most of them are old art books, most had not been entered. They are also too large and heavy for me to want to mail them. But they have been discarded.

1 Einmal bis ans Ende der Welt - to school

2 Geschichte der deutschen Literatur - Altpapier
3 Medieval culture and society
4 Renaissance and Reformation, 1300-1648
5 The Penguin companion to European Union (2002)

6 The Agricola and the Germania
7 The Mongol Empire

4 more books into the bag for school.

Just realized that I started this two years ago. Only one month missed (>82 MarthaJeanne:), and lots of months have more than ten books listed. Also a lot of books have gone straight from the 'to read' pile into the Women's Guild bags.

To read is at 266. I seem to attract books somehow.

I don't know how that happens!

Never happens to you, does it?

The three I counted but aren't entered yet are two library books: One about the Danube, the other an exhibit catalogue about old geographic treasures from the National Library. I didn't even go into the book stacks. I returned books (http://www.librarything.com/topic/245149#6192855), got the Edith Stein back, asked a librarian to reserve me a few books from the banned list. Then I picked out a few movies to watch, and the two books jumped out at me from the displays on my way back to the elevator. I really couldn't help it.

And as we went walking in Laxemburg park yesterday I picked up a book about all the little follies in the park. About 1800 the Kaiser decided he needed a medieval castle with suitable grounds... We go there once or twice a year, and I want to know more about the things we see. Especially if we take guests.

Maybe I ought to do my entering.

Added 5 books to the school bag, and am about to drive it over.

My mother and sister were here, and each took a book with her that I was not sure whether to keep or discard, so I will count

6) The last days of Rabbit Hayes
7) The Underground Railroad

8) Pathfinders : The Golden Age of Arabic Science

9) Folkways
Pulled this out to see if we should keep it. My first reaction was that it might be interesting to reread. After opening the book and seeing the yellowing paper and the tiny unclear font I realized that if either of us rereads it, it won't be this copy.

10) 101 things you didn't know about Shakespeare

11) Witch Child

In the process of finding these, I also threw away a few dozen CDs.

To read is at 269.

I was at the library branch with all the books about India today, and took them

1 Streetfood indisch

Jerry and I have also sorted through the math books and we can do without

2 Mathematician's Delight
3 Makers of Mathematics
4 Mathematics in fun and in Earnest
5 The treasury of Mathematics: 2
6 Foundations of modern analysis
7 Naive Set Theory
8 Topology
9 introduction to Algebraic Topology

and we are also getting rid of a lot of old comic books. These were Steven's, but he didn't bother putting them into his boxes in the attic, and he hasn't been back for years, so I'll be hard.

10 Weirdos from another planet!
11 Yukon ho! : a Calvin and Hobbes collection
Two other Calvin and Hobbes that had never been entered.

12 The tenth Garfield treasury
13 The Simpsons Forever - never entered

14 Enormously Fox trot
15 Wrapped-up Foxtrot
Another unentered Foxtrot

Well, now I won't feel quite so guilty about whatever happens at BuchWIEN later this week.

To read is at 266. Maybe I should keep just a little guilt? Of course, throwing old books away doesn't help the To read numbers, just makes space on the shelves for the new books.

Road Less Travelled

From death-camp to existentialism: a psychiatrist's path to a new therapy
The doctor and the soul
I am not likely to ever start reading Frankl, and if I do, it will be in German.

Kinder sind Brücken zum Himmel: Worte über Kinder

Existiert Gott
Another book that I am unlikely to ever decide to read. If I change my mind, the library has it.

This has allowed me to move books around enough that most of the newest books are no longer in a box on the floor, but on a shelf. Of course, only if I read faster than I buy.

I had also pulled Bread Baking with Herbs but started leafing through it with the result that I just baked some savory biscotti. The book stays on my shelf.

So the process doesn't just free up shelf space. It also gets us to see some items in our collections that we had forgotten about.

How to cook everything vegetarian

This is not a bad cookbook, but I need space for vegetable cookbooks, and this is as big as two or three others. I looked a bit, and noticed that there is a long essay on how wonderful chard is, followed by one recipe (with another elsewhere.) No, I can use the space.

Also, chard is gross. Good choice!

Chard is wonderful, and I have a bumper crop in my garden that I need to use.

BTW, I went to the UNWG Christmas Bazaar today. Just to the books - the crowds weren't quite so bad in that area. Not as good as sometimes, but in spite of setting a limit of 10 books, somehow I ended up with 13 in my bag. To Read is back up over 280.

BTW, I also recognized several books on the tables. Probably several of these will be back there next year. Luckily there was free wifi, so I was able to access LT. There were several more I would have been interested in...

To Read is now at 277.

(2017-01-01 282)

Australian Women's Weekly cookbooks
1 The Great Barbeque Cookbook
2 Food to go
3 Pies & tarts
4 Easy Greek-style cookery

DDR magazines. Not entered (by me, but in LT)
5 Äpfel.Birnen.Quitten
6 Wildfrüchte

See new reviews. These are quite old.
7 Harrods cookery book
8 The Kitchen Book

9 Früchte im Glas
10 Easy Meals

A friend is travelling to Iceland in March, so I am giving her some of our 10 year old guidebooks.

1-4 Christian Jacq Ramses series

5 The Vicar of Christ

6 Jade et les sacrés mystères de la vie My French was never good enough to read this. And is getting worse.

7 Veronika decides to die

8 God uses cracked pots

9 Chronicles of a curate

10 Byzantium

It looks like I ignored this in March. Not really. The books were picked out and piled up. I just got too interested in my weaving to get around to registering them.

1 Producing your own power

2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising sequence. I need to find a good home for these. As ever, I am willing to mail within the EU. ETA: Books taken.

7 Why Switzerland?
8 Switzerland : Insight Guide

9 Signspotting 2

10 Self-Catering Afloat

The other books are all so out-dated (if they were ever of any use whatever) that they should probably go in the recycling.

A bilingual school near us is taking the Cooper books, so I have chosen a few more books they might like.

1 Windmills and waterwheels explained
2 The Industrial Revolution explained
3 Steam Railways Explained
4 Bridges Explained
5 The science of Harry Potter
6 Swiss Family Robinson
7 Skating Shoes
8 The Giver
9 The Phantom Tollbooth
10 The Number Devil
11 The sugar-plum Christmas book
12 The Wind in the Willows

To Read is going back down. 262

Dropped off the books today, and have a better feel for what the librarian might like:

Real Fast Food
Lernerwörterbuch
The Museum : Behind the Scenes
Around the world in 80 treasures
Weihnachtsschmuck aus Böhmischen Glasperlen
Zauberhafter Strickbaukasten
Strickmuster, Stanfield
Hair (Klutz)

Two of these are provisional until I have reread them.

>109 MarthaJeanne: That first one looks intriguing. Ordered a couple of Slater's other titles from the library.

Slater is a quite good cookbook author. 'Think of a piece of chicken brushed witharomatic herbs and lemon, then char- grilled and stuffed into a crisp roll slathered with garlic mayonnaise... All this is fast food.' I seem to have bought this one for my son. Good choice for a school library. I am NOT giving away his Tender books. You would really like them.

Starting May a bit early:

Women's Guild bag
1 Clara Barton

School
1 Bridge to Terabithia
2 Weihnachten - noch Fragen?

>109 MarthaJeanne: Just finished reading The Museum. Lovely book, glad to have reread it, but I am now excited about some young people reading it, so it stays on the list.

More school
3 Why big fierce animals are rare

I seem to have let this slip a bit.

Back to cookbooks this month.

Best of the Best 1
Best of the Best 6
Problem with these is that even if I would like the recipes there is nothing getting me into the cookbooks. I remember making the Nutella cookies once. They were good, but we never did it again.

Gourmet barbecue

Limonaden, Summerdrinks & Co.

A Taste of Thyme

6 al dente

7 Veneto cuisine
I enjoyed this one ten years ago, but without Venetian ingredients It wouldn't taste the same. My husband has decided that I couldn't cope with Venice any more. He's probably right.

That seems to be enough progress for today.

And more cookbooks

1 Eisvergnügen am Stiel
2 Cooking the dutch oven way
3 Good Seafood Book
4 Heringsschmaus
5 Cooking on the Go
6 American Heritage Cookbook
7 House of India Cookbook
8 The Tassajara bread book I don't need this anymore, but it is the book I first learned to bake bread from.

9 Indian Sweet Cookery
10 Indian Vegetarian Cookery
11 Indian Meat & Fish Cookery

Most of these books are ones I have had for decades. They were good cookbooks in their day. But not only has our taste changed. So have our shops. Recent Indian cookbooks don't have to make as many adjustments to be usable in Western kitchens.

September
I did finally get the bag of books to the school, and the librarian was very happy with the books I had chosen for her.

Today I pulled the Greek and Hebrew books based on German from my shelves. I hope I have a place to donate them where they will be used. 5 books plus the answer booklets to 2 of them.

Yes, they will take them, and have given me directions for dropping them off.

6 (8) The Golden Circle

Excellent job getting the bags out of the house! That's the step I always fail at.

>129 2wonderY: It makes it less painful if I know that the books will be used.

Plus six travel guides that are over 10 years old. Those go in the paper recycling. Not all had been entered, but I'm not bothering.

September is done.

I needed space to put a book away, so we agreed on discarding
The adventures of Don Quixote
Draußen vor der Tür und ausgewählte Erzählungen (I'm guessing that the combining across languages there is inaccurate, but not going to touch it.)

Discarding can be very useful. Got rid of the Biblical language books yesterday.

Today I decided that it was time to get rid of the pile of used clothing I've been building. Shirts I never wear, Disney and Harry Potter sheets now that our youngest has been out of the house for several years ... I checked with my husband about large plastic bags to hold them. That sent him up to clear several things out, too. Fine with me! But after a while he called me to look, 'Do you know what this is?' Yes, even before he opened it out, I recognized the quilt I have been missing since we moved in here about ten years ago. My MIL embroidered 32 redwork squares as a child/teenager and then made them up into this lovely quilt. I have been heart broken that it was missing. He had noticed a large plastic bag that was disintegrating, and pulled it out to investigate. I am so happy to have the quilt back. And just in time to put on the guest bed for my mother's visit next month.

And yes, we loaded three bags of used clothing/house linens into the donation boxes. But not the quilt, of course.

I'm so glad for you!

October already.

1 - 3 I pulled a pile of books from the basement to see why they were in that pile. None had been entered. Three went into the discards bag. The fourth was entered and is now in To Read.

>124 MarthaJeanne: I explored my basement this past weekend too; and sent a box-full of books out the door. Will list them in my own thread perhaps this evening.

4 The eternity code : Artemis Fowl
Cleaning up for guests makes you see things that have been lying around.

Easy this month. My husband has decided to go through his thrillers.

5, 6 2x Baldacci (Mom took these for her flight home.)

7,8 2x Mankell

9 The Caesar Code

10 The secret soldier

-----
3x p j Tracy
Deadly Web
The hundredth Man
The Whitehall mandarin

He just brought down another stack. October is more than covered.

(Unless you tell me that I can't count his discards.)

I’m sure you can argue joint custody in the court.

1 Pilates for life

2 Fresh-Air Fiend: Travel Writings, 1985-2000
I was about to read this when I realized how small the typeface is.

3-6 Jerry's Dan Brown collection
7-9 Wambaugh
10 Haunted Mesa
11 Land of the Living

That was painless enough.

Lavinia
This Scepter'd Isle
Ill met by Moonlight

I'm not going to read these again, so they might as well go. Good authors, but not their best books.

1) The Medieval Cookbook
I am giving the old one away because I bought the newer edition (by mistake). The new one is set better, but otherwise I don't see changes in a quick look through.

2,3 I'm not listing these right yet, as they are going off to someone who sometimes checks this thread out.

ETA
2 Vegetarian Epicure
3 Madhur Jaffrey's world vegetarian

These three all went to the same person. The second and third were ones LT thought she should borrow but I never open any more.

I needed some space on the history shelf.
4 The War of 1812 : the war that both sides won
5 The Limits of Liberty

Backwards 'progress'. I went to the UNWG bazaar today, and come home with a few stacks. So far no duplicates.

Of course, it's fun going through and seeing my donations - including some that I bought there last year and gave back since. I did not accept change from the large bill I handed them, and found a few small items to buy at other stalls. Part of my Christmas charity giving, and giving to me as well. Some of the books look quite good. And a few chicklits that I would never buy at their real price.

I decided to figure out an old stack of books. Well, there was one I haven't read. One I ought to keep. The rest are various discards.

6 On the Brink: The Inside Story of Fukushima Daiichi
Good book, but I'll never read it again.

7 Ethnology of religion
Why did I read it once?

8 Dictionary of true etymologies
9 Only begotten daughter
10 Küchengerät des 20. Jahrhunderts: Kochen mit Stil und Styling
11 Blood and Beauty
Whether or not these were worth reading once, they are not worth a reread.

Happy 2019!

Looking for space on the history shelf

1 Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik
2 Das tägliche Leben im spätmittelalterlichen Niederösterreich
3 Sir Gawain We are still keeping the copy edited by Tolkien.
4 The Medieval World
5 Erec

These are all going into the paper recycling.

Decided to tackle the Theology stacks Oh, dear, first vacuum up the dust and cobwebs. I haven't been up here in a loooong time.
First shelf

Liturgy of life Nice anthology from 1991.
The Gospel in Hymns (1950)
The Church Hesitant 'the Church of England today' in 1993

>137 MarthaJeanne:. I like that title ‘The Church Hesitant.’ Made me smile.

Shelf 2 had a few books of 'modern' liturgical resources. Now out of date.

Acts of Worship (1960)
Bread for the journey (1981)
Sing and pray and shout hurray! (1974)
Women Included (1991)

I have to say, that even knowing that these were good collections at the time, now many of the prayers just make me cringe.

I also decided not to keep an old BCP/Hymns Ancient and Modern.

I'm not going to bother listing each and every outdated liturgy book I found on the third and fourth shelves.

The well at the world's end

This is being discarded because our copy has print too small for our eyes to read.

There is something very freeing about saying, 'I did not enjoy reading Calvin or Spong or Luther, and I don't think I am ever going to pick them up again, so off they go----

Luther had good points, but he was harsh. I haven't read Calvin, and Spong has always made me timid.

Do give us a count of the books, at least.

I did read the condensed edition of Calvin when we lived in Geneva, but it was difficult as I usually fell asleep after a few pages. 2017 was a big Reformation year, and I read several books about the reformation including quite a bit about Luther.

I'm not counting. I was hoping for some extra shelf space, but it keeps being used up. My certificate now has space without having books behind it. I moved several Bibles from the head of my bed where there was always 'stuff' in front of them to a place where they are easy to get to. This also meant giving that shelf more height, so I'll lose a shelf in this unit, which I'll probably be OK with. So I guess I will have gotten rid of one shelf worth in a seven (now 6) shelf unit. Adding in a narrow shelf for non-books that need a place to live.

Add in the fact that the whole section has been cleaned, and this has been a useful exercise.

A history of God One of the reviews says 'If I have one concern with this book it is that it is too much Karen Armstrong and not enough of anyone else. She holds strong views on nearly everything and is unafraid to state them as if they were objective truths. Dissenting voices are often entirely ignored." Which is more or less my memory of this.

>145 MarthaJeanne: I agree.

I kept two others of hers though. For many years she was the one publishing on issues that moved me. However she and I come to very different conclusions.

I'll list a few more that others might be interested in. Ie these aren't going straight into the recycling.

The Church If I read it again, it will be in German.
Mary : Mother of Reconciliation
Penguin Dictionary of Saints - recycling. Not only is the internet a better resource, but this copy has water damage.

Eight books on ethics - I have always been unhappy with my selection of ethics books. It seems very hard to find anything that is based on anything but 'These are the rules and you have to do it the way I say.'
As the books get older you also find that the examples used get less and less relevant.

Her Story
The Church women want
Women in Christianity
St Francis and the Song of Brotherhood

14 books mostly on prayer to toss. Two that might get new homes, and one goes back upstairs.

Eve's Glue was interesting to read again, but old. Discarded.

Oh dear, five new books managed to sneak into my shopping bags today, four of them cookbooks.

So a few others must leave.
Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery
Forgotten Skills of Cooking
Vegetarian Epicure 2
Fleisches Lust
Decorating Eggs in the Style of Faberge

How did that happen? Were you not on guard? Vigilance!

I don't know how it happened. Does it help that the first three books were remainders? When I walk through the centre of Vienna there are several bookstores with remainders ouside, and one does have to just glance at them in case...

And I was just going to buy a pepper mill at Babette's (cookbooks and spices), which we needed because the electric one gave up the ghost. And I just started looking around while the saleswoman served other customers, and somehow two books and a tin of tahine spice landed on the counter next to the pepper mill.

That’s right; blame it on the sales staff. It works for me.

And today she didn't even point the books out. They know me fairly well in there, and do sometimes point out new books that I might like. (Forget the 'might'. I always end up buying those suggestions.)

The dagger and the cross

This must have been one of Dad's books. It may have been useful 60 years ago.

Ein Winter in Wien Fairly short simple book taking place in Vienna, 1910. This would be good for someone new to Vienna and learning German at an intermediate level. Available if someone wants it (eu only).

3, 4, 5 The Divine Comedy I think that the chances that I will ever read this are very slight, and, no disrespect meant to Dorothy L Sayers, if I did, I would want a more recent translation.

6 Schlaraffenland & Gaumenlust : so schmeckt Niederösterrreich

7 Transylvanian Cookbook

So far this month more books have come into the house than have left it. That is not the plan!

8 People hunger to be near to God
9 Freedom of simplicity
10 Virgin time
11 Reformed spirituality
12 Christian spirituality (Pannenberg)

And another 25 books from the 80s on various aspects of spirituality. Not quite as impressive as it sounds, as half of them are Grove leaflets, but once I get them marked as discarded I can at least not feel as guilty about the books I was tempted by.

Hey, you had a Thingaversary obligation.

I have started reading a lot more messages and I am finding interesting topics. I need to do some cleaning also but have the same problem as you do in buying more books. I liked reading your messages.
Leona

>162 2wonderY: OK, and so far I am delighted with those books. They are good additions to my collection, but they still need to be countered by discards. I answered yes to the first vote on http://www.librarything.com/topic/305029 and no to my vote in message 13.

Add to that that I did very little discarding in February due to health issues.

Besides, now and again I come across a book that isn't a good fit for me (any more), but does fit well for someone else I know.

>164 MarthaJeanne: *wink* *nod*

Slowly marking those books discarded, and most of them are going straight to paper recycling. I'll only list the exceptions here.

Creating a learning church

I changed my mind about two of them.

Jesus Rediscovered - Wait a minute, this is falling apart. Altpapier after all.

1) Alias Grace I ODed on Atwood several years ago, and decided that I might read The handmaid's tale again, and her children's books, but I would leave the others.

2) China Dog

3) Belle du Seigneur

4) Talk to the Snail I'm going to include this in a package I should have mailed months ago.

Jerry and I looked at a few rows of fiction together. That makes decisions easier.

I just decided to add my whole Gerald Durrell (and Jacquie) to the stack. That's another 9 books. I started reading these in 1967. I may reread Beasts in my Bed before it goes in the discard bag, but none of these have been read since I joined LT, so time to pass them on.

1 Handweaving : designs and instructions
2 Alpenblumen in Kreuzstickerei
3 Calligraphie : Carnet de point de croix

Jardin (Bonnin) Oops, No, changed my mind.

4 Harry Potter : points de croix But this one can go.
5 A New Twist on Tatting
6 Erica Wilson's Embroidery Book

and a few more:

7 Father B's Book of Stitches
8 The Needlepoint Book
9 Needlepoint by design
10 More Needlepoint by design
11 Le point de Beauvais

As you probably guessed, I'm trying to clear out my textile books in the hopes of getting them in better order and having space for the new books about my current projects.

1 Thinking, fast and slow

Oh! I’d gotten away from even considering books for discard status. It’s probably a seasonal task anyway.

I had the butterfly garden book to put away, and the shelf was full. Had to get rid of something.

>174 MarthaJeanne: Huh! If that were my standard here, I don't know if I'd even try.

2 1001 Ideen für Marmeladen, Konfitüren & Gelees I'll never use this, but the school might like it.

3 The covenant

4) Crewel Embroidery (inspired by Ruth) and while I was there:
5) The new Crewel
6) Counted Thread Embroidery II
7) The Needlework Doctor My review starts, 'This book is a very good guide to best needlework practices in 1982.'
8) The Open Canvas I've added a review.
9) Needlecraft Treasury As this was listed as To Read, I did so, and added a review. This is by far the best of this stack, but the charts are very hard for me to read.

Not enough yet, so I'll add

10) The new world of needlepoint
11) Audubons Vogelmotive in Kreuzstich Again, the real problem is the old charts.

And another one to make space for a newer book.

Eine Prise Weisheit BTW No idea what happened to the Lemon Balm Schnapps.

I found a big group of big outdated books in a bookcase that had never been added. I may have a place where they will be used for the pictures/maps. Otherwise it's the paper recycling.

1) Die Chronik Österreichs
2) Internationaler Atlas = The international Atlas = El Atlas internacional
3) Chronicle of America
4) Stadtchronik Wien

5) A USA road atlas from 2000 that I'm not going to enter.

6, 7) Two more outdated map books, never entered. (Europe and UK)
8) Road Atlas Europe 2009 Love the fact that it has a date on the cover!

9) World of Networks This was a big photo book put out by WWF in 2002 or earlier. No ISBN. Nobody else has entered it here, and I don't want to change that.

10) Weltstadt im Land der Barbaren

Well, this was useful. Got rid of a fair amount of dead weight (most of it very heavy) on the shelf, and I have entered several books that are worth keeping, if only for sentimental reasons.

I seem to have missed August.

I left The man who cycled the world on a charity table in a British hotel. It disappeared within an hour. I hope the new owner likes it better than I did. I didn't pick up any books there, but the next hotel had a better selection.

Sushi for beginners and
This is going to hurt both landed in the give away bag. The second I finished. The first I only read half of.

Let's try to do better in October.

I pulled a group of three cookbooks from the shelf. One will be used tomorrow night, but Ainsley Harriot doesn't appeal as he did twenty years ago. Besides, I have many books with similar recipes. Several of the marked recipes use things we can no longer digest.

Ainsley Harriott's meals in minutes
Ainsley Harriott's all-new meals in minutes

also Ainsley Harriott's barbecue bible

Ainsley Harriott's gourmet express
Ainsley Harriott's gourmet express 2

After trying two recipes
Fast meals for Two Not bad, just not things I need a cookbook for.

Sorry, wir haben die Landebahn verfehlt : Kurioses aus dem Cockpit
Sorry, wir haben uns verfahren

9) iPad for Seniors Straight into the old paper. Not great back when I bought my first iPad.

>185 MarthaJeanne: How long ago was that? I was enthralled by the first ipads that co-workers brought in to boast about, but finally bought one (used) this year, and have used it very little. The plan was to use it to read ebooks.

>186 2wonderY: It says 2013. Six years is a long time in computers. Reading ebooks was what I wanted a tablet for, and after comparing the ones in the shop, I much preferred the iPad and since my husband was willing to pay the steep price, I got it. I still have a desktop upstairs, but I haven't turned it on in a long time.

Even in the beginning, I read quite a few ebooks - back then mostly from Gutenberg. In the meantime my library has OverDrive, so instead of getting culture in the form of older books, I read a lot of recent chicklit. The ebook readers I have seen are just all so small. I'm a fast reader, so I want a screen large enough that I'm not constantly swiping for the next page. My catalogue says 527 ebooks, and I don't enter those until I have finished reading them. In the beginning it was only about one a week, but in the last three weeks I have finished twelve (and 16 real books).

Wow! I thought you were busy gardening.

Like I said, I'm a fast reader. When I'm feeling fairly good I do more needlework and gardening work, but sometimes reading is all I can manage, or at least long spells of reading between other activities.

Problem. I had two books in this series http://www.librarything.com/series/RSN+Essential+Stitch+Guides.

Rather than buy all the other individual books, I bought the omnibus Royal School of Needlework Book of Embroidery. It's a lovely book, BUT it's big and heavy. So do I discard Crewelwork and Blackwork because I have them in the big book, or do I keep them because they are much easier to work from?

OK, I checked through a bunch of books about Austria or the UK and sorted out guide books, map books and similar that are at least 10 years old. One is 40 years old.

I'm not going to list them here as they are going into paper recycling, but there are more than 10. Good! Those shelves had books thrust in horizontally because the shelves were too full. Now it all fits.

In Wells this summer at the market book table, the seller managed to convince me to buy Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles. Three books. Well, I've finished the first one. Quite outside of not being at all recognizably Arthurian, it is a lot of blood, battles and rape. I have put all three in the bag for the women's guild. Some people seem to like this stuff.

Winter King
Enemy of God
Excalibur

A few days ago we went up into the attic and brought down the box of records. The library has a place now to listen to them, and even digitize them. A short stack got marked to take there some time. Another to not throw away yet, and a stack of 22 to either throw away or try to sell.

Does this count?

Indeed, yes!

This thread was started in September, 2015. Most months I have been able to list at least 10 books I have discarded. Usually that has not included the books I read (at least part of) and decided not to keep. I'm going to start the new year in a new thread.

I had to sort through some boxes to make room for the box of records we aren't throwing away unless I wanted to move it back up into the attic. In the process I found two copies of Very Hungry Caterpiller. One is English/German, the other a mini one in German. They will go to families we know.

I found some fiction I probably won't read again.

An elegy for Easterly : stories
Eine Robbe im Kaffeehaus
The black opal
Woman to woman
Julie and Romeo
His Last Duchess
Suche impotenten Mann fürs Leben

I think I may go hide in the basement guest room for the next several hours. Too much bang bang.

Testing Dream a little Dream