Piles

I've not been very active on Blip of late owing to a number of disruptions taking place in and on the house involving floor, windows, roof; now the replacing of an ancient stair/landing carpet necessitates  the removal of no less that four substantial bookcases and the temporary dispersal of their contents.

It's a good opportunity to whittle down the numbers but that requires strength of mind as well as body. Is it better to pick and choose, weigh the respective merits of books already read, yet to read (probably never), useful to possess, cherished for sentimental reasons and so on? Or to adopt the ruthless Roman system of decimation, every 10th book to fall out of line and take the rap for all? Truth to tell, the easiest option is to put them all back regardless.

For anyone who can empathise with this situation I recommend  a book (what else?) called Howards End is On the Landing by Susan Hill in which the author decides to ditch new reading in order to re-acquaint herself with her own  substantial but neglected book collection.