With Spring having (finally!) arrived, many people are starting the traditional go-round of Spring cleaning. The floors, windows, and anything else you could imagine gets a good scrub or at least a wiping down. One thing that might be neglected (to some extent) however, is your bookshelves.
You probably thought to wipe the dust from in front of the books, but did you consider the books themselves? Not only do books get majorly dusty – just like anything else – but they might have shifted in our perspectives as well in a year’s (or however long) time.
So how am I going to go about sorting and cleaning my books?
Step 1:
Acquire a new (to me), small bookshelf for to-be-read (TBR) books.
Actually, step one is pretty easy … my mom is passing down a bookshelf my grandpa made to me. It will be the perfect fit for my TBR books. Bonus: it has sentimental value!
Step 2:
Take all of my books off of the shelves, and stack them on the floor (Marie Kondo style!)
Step 3:
Sort books based on if I have read them or not. If not, and I’m still interested in reading them, they are cleaned and placed on the new TBR bookshelf. The ones I’m no longer interested in will be traded in at a used bookstore or donated.
Step 4:
Sort remaining books based on their significance to me. If I plan to re-read them (I regularly re-read my favorites) or want my future children to be able to read them, they stay (after a good cleaning).
Otherwise, I consider who in my life might be interested in the books I’m passing along. They will either go to that person, be traded in at a used bookstore, or be donated.
Step 5:
Clean the bookshelves and place newly cleaned keep books on shelves. Consider using a system where you place your absolute favorites first down to your least favorites, and donate anything that doesn’t fit (if you have trouble deciding what you want to keep).
No more neglected books – those are the easy 5 steps I will be using to cull my book collection this year. Are you sorting your book collection? How do you decide what to pass and what to keep?
Christian, wife, “hybrid” mama, I run the site All Behind A Smile to help others like me.
[…] it feels like forever since Why (and How) I’m Clearing Off My Bookshelves was written, this is at least the second major bookshelf overhaul in the last few years, but […]