Books, Books, Books (dh's, NOT mine)

[laurabfig]

My husband has so many books that he accumulated in seminary and he insists that he uses ALL of them (not really true
Has anyone had luck convincing their partner to organize and purge to simplify the amount of stuff in the house? Any ideas?

[Jazzmin]

Purge books? I've not had any luck there. Let me know if you figure out how to get them to let go :

[Koalamom]

I am in the same boat. Dh has so many books that he does not need. I have tried to convince him to let go, but that made him want to keep them even more.

[laurabfig]

Yeah, I've considered taking a few of the "never used or looked at in 9 years of marriage" books off his shelf and boxing them up in the attic to see if he even asks me for them in the next year or so. hee hee
I think I'm going to pare down what I have this summer...which is about a tenth of his total collection, so it won't really make a dent in the clutter.

[justmeandmybrood]

I feel your pain! DH has tons of Army training manuals and field manuals, is also completing a 12-month school, meaning yet more 4" binders, manuals, books...ugh! Add to it his books from his semester abroad (as in FIFTEEN years ago!!!!) that he has widdled down but will not let go of (yes, books he could probably get from the library)...and add to it my own books, and yowsa!

[laurabfig]

Well, at least if no one has any good solution, at least I feel not so alone in battling the book clutter anymore!
A friend who is great at interior design did help me to arrange SOME (probably only 1/10th of what dh actually owns!) of them neatly in the living room....one great idea she gave me was to take all the dust jackets off the books when you display them in your living space. Makes them much more asthetically pleasing to look at at least.

[hopefulfaith]

My dh did the same thing, and what totally worked for me was having him take them to work and put them in his office. He has a huge shelf in there full of references ... and I don't have to fret about him keeping the 1991 manual for whathaveyou that I am not sure he's referenced since 1992.

[Magelet]

yeah books aren't even on my radar for decluttering mostly. (that said, about 2/3 of the books at my mom's house that are mine are going to goodwill/bookstores. I need to clean out my stuff at my parent's houses from moving out, and I'd say 2/3 of my books are YA that I don't like to read/are really boring and poorly written. I love good YA, but most of them are not.) But the books here? no way.

[Comtessa]

My DH and I volunteer with a Books-to-Prisoners program every week. For a while, this was great, because DH was finding a lot of books on our bookshelves and saying, "hey, this would be a great donation for the program!" Now, however, it's having the opposite effect -- almost every week, one of us will find a book in the program library and say, "nobody in prison would want this one," and off we go with another book for our house. I can't blame DH entirely for this one, since I do a bit of it too. Especially now that I'm teaching, I'm always looking for new materials to assign my students. It gets a little unwieldy.

DH is also addicted to the book sales at the library. That's the worst!!

[FelixMom]

Can I join your club? Because I too have a DH that likes to keep boxes of books he doesn't read...

[Biscuits & Gravy]

Giving up books was something I had a hard time with. It was one of the last things I really tackled. I finally convinced myself that if I really needed to re-read one of them I could find it at the library. I sort of think of the library as my storage space for all of the books I love.

[Masel]

I don't mind his books so much but I'm tired of the magazines and journals he has two ways. There is one he has in PDF but keeps the print ones as well.

[hteb83]

Lots of books here too!

I've found that actually taking them off the shelves (or our of boxes!), and then looking at each one and deciding if I'm likely to read or use it again - before putting it back means I get rid of far more than if I just look at them whilst they're on the shelf...

[laurabfig]

Originally Posted by hteb83

Lots of books here too!

I've found that actually taking them off the shelves (or our of boxes!), and then looking at each one and deciding if I'm likely to read or use it again - before putting it back means I get rid of far more than if I just look at them whilst they're on the shelf...

That is a good point. I'm going to purge some of mine this summer using this method.

[Shahbazin]

Originally Posted by hteb83

...I've found that actually taking them off the shelves (or our of boxes!), and then looking at each one and deciding if I'm likely to read or use it again - before putting it back means I get rid of far more than if I just look at them whilst they're on the shelf...

But don't you then get sucked into "bookland", & end up reading your books instead of organizing them? That's my problem - "Oh, I haven't seen that one for a while! Hmmn... interesting. Wow, this is neat!" I have actually been known to let books go, but I definitely keep far more.

Honestly, the "designated space" thing has helped me far more with books & the like - if one has X number of shelves, then all must fit, or you have to pick which ones to sacrifice. Ease of finding/borrowing another copy is certainly a factor, as well as frequency of reading it, & whether one would need the info at a moment's notice.

[Comtessa]

Originally Posted by Shahbazin

But don't you then get sucked into "bookland", & end up reading your books instead of organizing them?

Oh. Oh my. Oh yes, this is me. I am so guilty of this.
I worked in a bookstore for years and years, and I used to do this when I was shelving books at the store, too. Ooh, my manager used to get on my case about this!!! I just couldn't help it...

[EdnaMarie]

I love books. It is the ONE collection I have. It is my collection and darnit, I'm keeping them. I do not want an empty house. No, I don't read all of them regularly but I love them as decoration (what is more beautiful than a room full of books?) and also for the future. When I'm retired. Sometimes I think of a book I gave away and think, "Wasn't there something in that book...?"

We also have carpets all over our floors. We don't need them. They make our lives happier. A thing of beauty is a joy forever and what is more beautiful than a collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald, lovingly accumulated from different printings and sitting in a nice little square?

Does your husband have any other collections? If not, I suggest he be allowed to keep them on a nice bookshelf.

My husband and I each have one collection that we get to keep. I think a personal library is a normal, cultured thing to have. They are my only collection and my only personal pleasure in life. Maybe an Ikea bookshelf and having them neatly arranged would help?

[IsaFrench]

lots of books here too .... it's difficult to see when "too much is too much" ... for oneself .... I mean I would happily give half (100 ?) of the books each of my eldest kids have (we have still more in boxes, from the move 18 months ago) but they totally refuse to part with any.

one way for me to sort of "organise things better", at least for my bookcases (adults get 2 each, the kids get one each.... sometimes I wonder if the floor is not going to give in on the weight .... could we one day end up at our downstairs neighbor with the weight of it all ?)

... has been to save boxes from diapers, cut the top and cover them with that adhesive plastic that comes in rolls, especially one type that looks like fake wood... and then put at least one box per shelf since I can stack much more in each box than if I put the book directly on the shelf
+ since it's more or less the same color as the shelf/bookcase, it looks less visual clutter when you first come in the room

+ I don't always like when visitors take a look at what I read (well, it depends on the subject but I like to have quite a few self-help books, evidently less glamorous than the complete works of Jane Austin ....)

[USAmma]

My dh has a lot of books from his school years like 15 years ago. Out of date, dusty, not ever used, but he won't part with them. We each have equal space on some book shelves. He can put whatever he wants on his shelves and I ask that he store the rest of his books on his side of the closet. I pointed out that old books are a big source of dust mites and mold and allergy problems.

Recently I purged a bunch of books that have not been read in years and I didn't think they would be again. These were books we had both read, just novels and stuff. Of course, as luck would have it, he came looking for one the very next week that I had donated. He was sooo mad and I really don't blame him on that one. At the same time I know if I had asked about every single book he would have kept them all-- and he has not yet missed the others.

[laurabfig]

Originally Posted by EdnaMarie

I love books. It is the ONE collection I have. It is my collection and darnit, I'm keeping them. I do not want an empty house. No, I don't read all of them regularly but I love them as decoration (what is more beautiful than a room full of books?) and also for the future. When I'm retired. Sometimes I think of a book I gave away and think, "Wasn't there something in that book...?"

We also have carpets all over our floors. We don't need them. They make our lives happier. A thing of beauty is a joy forever and what is more beautiful than a collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald, lovingly accumulated from different printings and sitting in a nice little square?

Does your husband have any other collections? If not, I suggest he be allowed to keep them on a nice bookshelf.

My husband and I each have one collection that we get to keep. I think a personal library is a normal, cultured thing to have. They are my only collection and my only personal pleasure in life. Maybe an Ikea bookshelf and having them neatly arranged would help?

This is a great point and a good perspective for me to hear. I realized while reading your post that it is really NOT the actual books that I feel are "clutter"- it is how he never organizes them neatly and in an asthetically pleasing way. We have a whole wall of bookshelves in what could be a beautiful bedroom upstairs; he has his books just haphazardly arranged on the shelves and has sort of taken over that room with his "clutter" (bike stuff, golf stuff, and his books/tools/etc.). I just keep the door shut so I don't see it all. Maybe someday he'll let me help him with that room, but until then, we live in peace b/c that is the area of the house that I don't touch.