Giving Away Half My Books

Since the start of the new year, I’ve given away dozens of books from my library, for free, to people I know. First I put all the books I planned on keeping into three boxes, then I filled my bookcase at work with as many of the rest as I could fit and sent a memo advertising “FREE BOOKS: Take what you can carry!” Any time I met people for drinks this week, I brought along a book or two for each person — including the time I was invited to drinks with people I had never met before, one of whom asked whether, since I was giving away my possessions, they could assume I was planning a terrorist attack. No, just a New Year’s resolution to get out from under my book-avarice. I was starting to stare at my bookcase for twenty minutes at a time, not to pick out a book, but simply to bask in its musty alphabetical splendor. I'm not saying that admiring your own bookshelf is a bad thing to do; I just know it’s a spiritual hazard in my case.