Bibliophile or Bibliomaniac?

I find them at yard sales, stacked aside in boxes. They whisper to me from the boxes under the tables.

Paperback and hardback books for less than a dollar apiece!

Oh, Sweet Heavens! I can never resist loading my arms and bringing them home to my house. They need me!

Sad, isn’t it?

I would like to say that my husband and I are “bibliophiles,” but our situation is much worse than that. I think we may have “bibliomania.” A Bibliophile loves books and collects them. A Bibliomaniac collects for no other reason than that the object is a book. Bibliomania is sometimes classified as an obsessive compulsive disorder, and is sometimes associated with compulsive hoarding.

Yep, that’s us to a “T.”

We have shelves of books in every room. Books are stacked in corners, on tables, under the bed, and in the closets. I’d like to tell you that I need all those books for my work as a professional storyteller: I find folktales in those books. However, I think I would have a hard time justifying the Janet Evanovich and Sue Grafton novels; there aren’t many stories for kids in those. My husband is trying to justify having a book called, The Saga of The Vacuum Tube. I’m not lying.

We know that if we are going to have a simpler lifestyle, things are going to have to change. We are going to have to dispose of some books.

“Gasp!”

If you are a book lover, you know the horror of it. Some people might be able to take a single day and say to themselves, “I’m going to get rid of these books!” Then, they just do it. I admire that. It reminds me of the way a doctor might treat a gangrenous limb. The doctor doesn’t whittle it away bit by bit; he amputates!

I can’t do it! This is going to hurt, any way we do it (my poor husband got the most stricken look on his face when I told him we had to get rid of 1/3 or our books).

We have to whittle. I know it is going to be painful, and I know I’ll make mistakes. There will be books I will regret banishing from my world. I have to keep reminding myself that most books can be replaced if I simply must have them back. I have to remember that my life will be simpler, and better, without being the caretaker of a houseful of books.

Yeah. Right. You think I’m going to remember that when I wake up in the middle of the night and remember that I got rid of my copy of that cookbook by George Foreman called Knock-Out-The-Fat? How will I ever know how to cook on my George Foreman grill?

This journey began on a separate blog (you can click here to read About Out Of Chaos), but that wasn’t really simplifying was it? I moved all of the posts to This Eclectic Life under the category Out Of Chaos. I’ll be adding more from time to time. I hope you join me.

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. The Librarian Is Your Friend
2. How Do I Sort These Books?
3. Finding New Homes For The Books
4. Bibliography for Storytellers
5. Getting Lost In The Story, With Audiobooks

Tagged as: books, clutter