ok, since my life is in a serious state of flux, i’ve decided to rearrange furniture. it’s a nice back-breaking, sweat inducing, get-your-mind-off-stuff activity. but, it does introduce some moral dilemmas.
see, the bookcases (all five of them) are filled to the brim. filled to overflowing, really, because there are books in the bedroom, in the hall closet, in the entryway, that have never found their way into a bookcase. while, the easy answer would be to buy another bookcase, that’s not physcially possible with the space allotment of my apartment.
i must admit that i have a goodly number of books i’ve never read– some that i have purchased, many that were gifts. many of those gift books i have no intention of ever reading– ever, some i have no intention to ever read again. so the moral question is, can i give/sell/toss out those books? is there some moral obligation to keep those books around merely because they were a kind gesture of someone? and the sub-question, if you no longer have any contact at all (and haven’t for many, many years) with the book-giver can you give/toss the book guilt free?
My Mom was a furniture mover. (Also a wall painter.) I’ll never forget coming home late from a date, in the dark, and flopping down on the sofa — only the sofa wasn’t there any more.
No, you have no obligation to keep books you don’t want/need/care about. Give them a new life with someone who might really like to read them — haul them down to the library.
Give them away and have some fun with it. See http://www.bookcrossing.com
I agree… let them go and give them a new life. Set them free! If they don’t come back… etc etc etc.