Jenn declutters in 2016

Today is my 6-year Thingaversary so it's about time I started my first reading thread. My main goal is to get the books I read this year out of my house. I have several large bookpiles that have taken over my living space -- there's hardly any room left over for the dust bunnies! At one time, I had all my books tagged so that I knew exactly where each and every one was but that was before my nephew moved in and decided to help me declutter. Bookpile pix to come.

Bookpile 1

more bookpiles

Following! And happy Thingaverary!

A few of those are in my piles, too, which form a wall around my desk chair, with a little alleyway to get in and out. I'm very pleased that you are doing a reading thread this year, and will enjoy following along.

Happy thingaversary and good luck with the decluttering!

Hmm, I can see 5 books that are on my shelves, and another that's in the current Kindle deals (in the UK at least).

I will say that my decluttering has been limited to de-duplicating after my partner and I moved in together last summer, and the slow replacement of physical books with ebooks for marginal keepers and massive series. I used to save new series books for holiday reads along with the preceding volumes, but that got silly when there were 10+ volumes in the series.... For a 2-week holiday I was taking more than 25 books, and still ran out of reading mid-way through the second week.

My mother used to complain about the number of books I took, but she used to take 6 months of The Sunday Times supplements, so pots and kettles. Mind you, her reading material got left behind, but mind came back with me instead of being replaced by bottles of booze.

>1 Jenni_Canuck: Do @pgmcc and the ISPCB know of these nefarious activities? Have they approved?

Happy Thingaversary (slightly belated now, no doubt) and I wish you many happy hours of reading (I'm sure I recognise a few of those in the pile from my own Mt TBR - some of the authors and a few of the titles too). With ref to >8 hfglen: I shall make no comment on the decluttering for fear of bringing down the wrath of the ISPCB.

I think The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing has a chapter on books? :-)

Warning: author Marie Kondo is absolutely ruthless! Inspiring, though...

Read a library copy, and avoid adding to the clutter?

Thank you everyone! I promise that no book will be indiscriminately turfed out into the frigid Canadian winter. Good homes will be found for all! Only the physical books have to be rehoused; I still have lots of room on my iPad. I have to admit I’m cheating by starting with this book pile insofar as I’ve already read about half of them, but they still need to be sorted and tagged.

>10 margd: If I could unearth and gather them all together, I would have a very tall pile of decluttering and organizing books which have, unfortunately, become part of the problem :D

>8 hfglen:
An agent has been dispatched to do a welfare check.

Looking forward to following your reading and decluttering adventures this year! I have a similar number of piles that size and perhaps you will inspire me to get them under control too (humanely of course!).

>10 margd: I borrowed Stuff : compulsive hoarding and the meaning of things from the library, and liked it so much that I wanted to buy a copy of it for myself. The only thing that stopped me was an awareness of the irony of the situation. It was a struggle, though.

Arrived home today to find my wonderful SantaThing books so I'll be increasing my book hoard shortly. Two are BEAUTIFUL colouring books and so are completely free from any clutter anxiety :D

Deadly Gamble by Connie Shelton was a Bookbub freebie. Charlie (Charlotte) Parker and her brother Rob have a private investigation firm in Albuquerque: Rob is the investigator and Charlie is the accountant. While Rob is away from the office, Charlie’s former friend Stacey asks Charlie for help in retrieving a Rolex watch which was stolen by a guy with whom she had had a brief affair. Stacey is desperate to find the watch, which was a gift from her husband (there is an undercurrent of spousal abuse), before he returns from a business trip. After a little poking around, Charlie locates the watch in a pawn shop and returns it to Stacey. Shortly thereafter, the guy who stole the watch is found dead in his car and Stacey is charged with his murder. There was a much ado about a visit from Charlie’s brother and his family but it didn’t seem to have any significance to the story. This was an okay book but not a keeper. Also, since my TBRs are taller than I am, I’m not inclined to pursue the series. And, speaking of series, I have two books left to read in Robin Hobb’s Rain Wilds Chronicles so next up is City of Dragons.

Finished City of Dragons.
Started Blood of Dragons.

Finished Blood of Dragons yesterday. I enjoyed this entire series and am a little sad to have come to the end.
Started Apocalypsis.

Following along :)

Writing reviews of books I’ve read is something I’m not very good at but I am very very good at finding ways to avoid doing it. This past month, you’ve helped me do this as I’ve spent many delightful hours getting lost in the reading threads and running out of time to attend to my own. I don’t know how you keep up!

Read in January
Kahayatle
The Girl in the Box
City of Dragons
Blood of Dragons
California Demon
Abduction
The Rescue
The Search
Squirrel seeks chipmunk: a modest bestiary
Deadly Gamble
The Gate to Women’s Country

I am slowly reducing the number of physical books in my house. These found new homes in January:
Tuck Everlasting
The Lace Reader
The Secret
Diary of a Bad Year
Disgrace
Small Group and Team Communication
Carpe Demon
California Demon
Precious
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk
The Gate to Women’s Country
A Confederacy of Dunces
To My Dearest Friends
Invisible Darkness – The Horrifying Case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka