Read and Weed

It's March! It's Spring! It's time for spring cleaning, bookworm-style!

I'm excited to announce a personal reading project called Read and Weed.

Basically, that means that I have too many books on my shelves, and instead of quietly reading through them and donating the ones I don't want to keep, I need to make a big deal about it, complete with cutesy rhyming name.

My problem is that I love to buy books. It used to be much worse when I'd frequent library book sales and used bookstores, but I now avoid those as best I can. However, I still buy a lot of books from independent presses to support authors I know and love and have good stuff to read for Shorter is Better book club.

But if I'm already ordering one book, I often buy one or two others, either because they sound good or I want to get free shipping or just, you know, buy more books?

That means I have a lot of books that I haven't read. Because then I inevitably get distracted by other new books, or want to revisit an old favorite, or find something that looks good at the library. So while I might not continually spend money, I'm still bringing more books into my home. Even when the library books are returned, I still rarely turn to those unread volumes on my shelves.

Until now.

I may have gorgeous built-in bookcases that can handle this load, but I want to curate a library I love. And that means I need to assess what I already own.

It's my goal to read at least two books I already own each month, meaning this project should take about 20 years to finish. Okay, not really. But maybe?

At the same time, I'm going to try to curtail my book-buying so it's possible to actually have an end date for this project.

Wish me luck!