Rejections

By Jeri Westerson

The dreaded rejection. Does it ever end? Even published authors are not immune from rejection, I'm sorry to say. Being published does not guarantee that you are gold. Short stories in magazines, other novels in other genres...there's a long list of ways to be rejected. I thought I'd share a few of my collection over the years. Some of you may know that I started off writing historical fiction and really couldn't get my foot in the door. But the kind of historicals I liked to write--ordinary people in extraordinary settings--seemed to translate better into mystery. So I had many years of rejections. Mostly, they are form rejection letters. Often, it is a note scrawled on my query (when such things were done on paper). These were for agents and editors for my first Crispin book.

I think my favorite one was a rubber stamp slammed onto my query letter that said, "Not Interested." They were so anxious to get this rejection back to me that they didn't even seal the envelope!

By far this was the most frequent statement I received--probably the most frequent statement any author receives--especially on form rejections: We don't believe it is suitable for our list at present.

Here are just a few.

• I think you have an interesting premise--a detective mystery set in the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, I just didn't fall in love with the writing. 

• Thank you for sending this interesting piece, but we've decided to pass on the project.

• This manuscript is well written--the writing flows naturally, and it's a pleasure to read. But I'm afraid I think, on a basic level, if you've read one (medieval mystery), you've read most of them. I find, generally speaking, that medieval mysteries are just stories, often rather thin stories, dressed up in not-a-costume: Originality = poor, Setting = poor, Characters = almost good, Dialogue = good, Plotting = almost good, Excellence in writing = very good

• I thought this medieval mystery was well done but not compelling enough to overcome our marketing concerns (historical mysteries tend not to sell well for us in mass market.)

• The novel contained a convincing recreation of late medieval dialogue and atmosphere, but I'm afraid I wasn't as involved in the historical plot and characters as I needed to be. 

• We already have one British medieval series on our list and to add a second seems unwise.

• I truly enjoyed your story and look forward to reading another one. Unfortunately, this one does not meet our needs at this time.

• Protagonist seems motivated only by his immediate circumstances. We need more background angst to make him truly interesting. 

Really? Crispin needs more background angst? Boy, this is depressing me. Does it depress you? It's just as bad as any reviews that contradict each other. It just shows that opinions vary. I must remind myself that not only did I get a great agent at last, but also an editor and publisher who believed in the books. Despite the flaws of the publisher's marketing strategy, the books have all been nominated for peer and reader awards. Even with my most recent release, SHADOW OF THE ALCHEMIST, it's been nominated for tehe RT Reviewers' Choice Award for Best Historical Mystery, and Suspense Magazine named it one of the Best of 2013. Go figure. Even though the Crispin books may be down, they are definitely not out.

The takeaway from all of this is "Don't Give Up." I had many years of rejections from both agents and editors. Fourteen years of them. Just because one project doesn't work, be ready to move on to the next. You never know what will catch fire or with whom.

Drowning in Books

by Sandra Parshall

Books on my desk.

Books on tables.

Books piled in front of other books on shelves. On virtually every shelf.

Boxes of books stacked in corners.

Books on chairs, books on the floor.

Help! 

I am drowning in books, and if I hope to ever have room for... well, more books... I have to get rid of some of these tomes that currently overwhelm me.

Rather than grabbing an armful at a time and tossing them into boxes, which might precipitate a total psychological breakdown, I thought a careful pruning, a selective weeding out of unwanted volumes would be painless. And maybe it would be, if I knew the meaning of "unwanted" in connection with books. I would like to keep all of them and perhaps build new additions to the house when we run out of space.

But I must be realistic. The selection process must begin.

Every room except one in our house has bookshelves, so I have a big job. I can, at least, ignore the books in my husband’s study, which are entirely his problem. Instead of going at the rest from a negative starting point – What can I toss? – I will first mark as off-limits the books that must stay, the ones that have earned a permanent home in the Parshall manse.

First, my reference collection, all my books on crime and crime-solving, are staying put. I’ll hang onto my how-to writing books, because every time I finish writing a novel I forget how to do it and become convinced I’ll never do it again. I wouldn’t part with Donald Maass’s inspiring Fire in Fiction, in particular. 

Family room

Family room

My gardening books, my cookbooks (which are mostly stashed in cabinets and not on view), my photography books, my birding books, my plant and animal reference books, most shelved in the family room: definitely keepers. We can probably throw away the older editions of movie references – except that they might contain entries that have been purged from later editions to save space. Best to check and make sure – some other time. (I don’t care if all that information is available online. I want to be able to grab a book and look it up, not go to my computer or iPad and launch an internet search.)

Living room nonfiction shelves

I really do need all the books on history,
especially those about the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe, the kings and queens of England, the Borgias, the Tudors, et al. You would be amazed how often I look things up in them (such as when I want to refresh my memory of the facts after some TV drama has presented a fanciful version). I’m also reluctant to dispose of any biographies, even if I doubt I’ll ever open them again. I may doubt it, but I can’t know for sure, so best hold onto them. Again, online is no substitute. In any case, the nonfiction shelves in the living room, at least, always look reasonably tidy, probably because the bulk of our history and biography volumes are in my husband's study.

Poetry collections, books on literature – they stay.

And now we’ve arrived at the crux of my book population problem: fiction. Realistically, how many of these novels will I ever read again, or even dip into? I can name some with certainty: all of Isak Dinesen’s Gothic tales (as well as her marvelous memoirs of Africa); all of Flannery O’Connor; all of Carson McCullers; several of Thomas H. Cook’s novels, which refresh my pleasure in the crafting of evocative prose; and my old, worn hardcover copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. 

Living room fiction shelves after a major purge

I also won’t part with any Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine novels, or my copy of Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River, and a few other works of crime fiction that soar above the ordinary. I love Louise Erdrich and Edna O’Brien too much to let go of anything of theirs. I used to feel that way about a few other writers, particularly southern authors, but those bonds have loosened and I haven’t glanced at their old work or read their new in years.

What you see in these pictures is a fraction of the books in our house. The worst problem is in my study, where I write and where the majority of books coming into the house end up. The bookcase at the top of this blog is one of several in my study. The picture is a tight shot because just beyond the camera's range is a mess of such proportions that I'm ashamed to let you see it. The other shelves in the room are equally crowded, and I have boxes of books and stacks of books that haven't found space on shelves. I have books in the closet and books on the floor. My study is a disaster area, but FEMA is busy elsewhere just now, and responsibility for the cleanup is mine alone.

Will I make serious progress in purging this overgrown collection? Or will I stop the minute I’ve cleared just enough space to get all the loose books neatly lined up on the shelves (without so much as an inch left for the next new book that makes it through the door)? Anybody want to lay bets, or this one too easy to call?

When was the last time you cleaned out your book collection? Have you ever tossed something you later wished you’d kept?

The Book Problem

by Sheila Connolly

I know—you've heard it before.  Too many books, too little space.  But since I could no longer walk across the floor—heck, I couldn't even see the floor—in the so-called office, I knew it was time to take drastic action.

Of course I gave this much thought, and I came to a realization:  this house does not like books.  Why do I say that?  Because there is no room for bookshelves, or at least, not if I want any other furniture, like to sit on.  What's the problem?  No wall space.

I live in a stately Victorian house with a whole lot of doors and windows—and when I say windows, I mean six-foot windows that begin about two feet from the floor.  Front parlor:  two windows, two sliding doors, each six feet wide.  Back parlor:  three windows, the aforesaid sliding door, two regular doors (side by side, for some reason—you have multiple choices about how to go from any room to the next).  Dining room:  three windows, five doors, fireplace.  Kitchen:  three windows, five doors, and appliances.  Net result:  no space for bookshelves. Upstairs is just as bad.

I am not giving up my books.  Well, not all of them.  Several years ago we built an entire wall of shelves in the office, and they are now filled three deep.  I had not seen the books on the back layer for years until this great purge.  Mysteries take up fully half of the shelves, with the collection of Golden Age mysteries in the rearmost layer.  I'm keeping those.

Then comes contemporary mystery fiction:  books by my friends and co-bloggers; books by writers I truly admire, whose books I will buy no matter what.  (And I even have two shelves of my very own!)  I've been doing triage there, and my local library will be happy (I think I'm up to four boxes for them, and I'm not done yet).

So I filled in the extra space with
Agatha Christie books--hey, we have
the same publisher, don't we?

The other half of the bookshelves:  classic literature, including a chunk of '70s women's fiction I refuse to part with.  I'm seriously considering dumping the romance (where I tried unsuccessfully to fit in when I first started writing), not because they're bad books, but because I have to prioritize, and the mysteries come first.

That doesn't even touch the reference section.  Since I'm writing three different series, each has its own section, both historical and contemporary.  For the coming Irish series I've been trying to catch up with contemporary Irish crime fiction, which doesn't always make it to the US (save for Tana French, whose books I love), and then there's all the Irish history that I never learned in school.  And Irish poetry, and Irish language books.  For the others, there are books about Philadelphia history and society, and books about raising apples, and…

And don't forget the genealogy library—and genealogy is a thread that runs through all my books, so how could I get rid of those?

The reality is, unless I live to be 107 I will never have time to reread all these books, no matter how much I love them.  Why do I keep them?  Because they're old friends.  We've been through a lot together.  I'll admit that one of my newer criteria is, if I pick up a book from my shelf and leaf through it, and don't remember a single thing about it, it can go.  But most of those have been weeded out long ago.

The books that remain comfort me.  I've met many of the authors now, and a good number I call friends.  I'm proud to find myself among them on my shelves.  I'm keeping them—now that I've bought (and all but filled) another 48 feet of shelf space!

Any bets on how long that space will last?

Flown Again

by Sheila Connolly

My daughter has moved out of the family home—again. When she went off to college, I thought we had done our "empty nest" thing. Then after college she had no firm plans about her next step, so she moved in with us again (note: this is not the house or the town she grew up in). She found a job, made friends, and saved her money. But she's young (to me, under thirty seems young) and unencumbered, and I was happy to support her urge to fly. So a little over a week ago, she packed up her car (with 240,000 miles on it) and headed west for Urbana, to a new life.

And we've been dealing with the "empty nest" issue all over again. This time it feels more final, because when she was in college she was only two hours away, and we exchanged visits regularly. Urbana is about 18 hours away, so it's a little harder to drop in.

But that "empty" is relative, because when she filled up the car, there was a lot of stuff left over, and it's all sitting here where she left it.

What does one's "stuff" say about a person? If you were forensically-minded, you would look at the evidence and say: she likes clothes and books. Her taste in clothes turned out to be very classic and conservative, and I sometimes regret we are not the same size, because I'd be happy to wear some of them.

Ah, but then there are the books. Since she was working in a bookstore the books were kind of inevitable. She's also my daughter, so I'm forced to conclude that book-hoarding is hereditary.

What can you learn about someone's personality from what s/he reads? My daughter was a comparative literature major in college (which may explain why her career path is a bit muddy), and she also favored contemporary poetry. In addition, she would bring home from the bookstore a variety of ARCs and remaindered books that looked interesting, many of which I read. It's a mixed blessing: if I like the book, I feel reluctant to buy a "real" copy when it's finally issued because I already have it, albeit in a sometimes dilapidated form. And if I happen to run into the author at an event, s/he may wonder about me when I say I loved the book, when it came out only two days earlier—and also wonder why I'm not buying a signed copy direct from their very own hands. It's happened.

My daughter and I have had some spirited conversations about writing and books. She claimed that genre (e.g., romance and mysteries) are to be scorned, although I'm not sure how she would define "literature," or even a "good" book. She has never read any book I have written (that she would admit to, at least). Yet for all of that, she once texted me from New York to say she had just walked by Mary Higgins Clark on the street. What? How did she recognize her?

What we share is the inability to get rid of any book we have chosen. I know when I was her age, I reread a lot of books, partly because I couldn't afford new ones, and partly because I continued to derive something from a book each time I read it. I could do that more easily now because I manage to forget a lot about any book I read these days (my current benchmark for a good book is whether I remember it after I've put it down), but I don't do much re-reading because there are new books coming out all the time. So many books, so little time.

Someday my daughter may inherit the books I've collected, and they number in the thousands, I'm afraid. She could probably write a profile of me, based on those that I've kept: a science fiction phase; a smattering of feminist/women's fiction, mainly from the 70s; the requisite collection of classics, old and modern; and of course, a lot of mysteries, starting from the beginning.

When you visit someone's home for the first time, do you check out what books they have on their shelves? And what does that tell you?

Too Many Books

by Sheila Connolly

Oh, no, you say—not again! You've heard it all before, right? Well, the problem hasn't gone away, and the last couple of weeks have introduced yet more complications.

Let's start with the Bouchercon conference, now a rapidly receding memory—except for the stacks of books. If you've never attending a writers conference, you may not know that when you walk in you are handed a badge and a bag full of books. Yes, a whole bag. These are contributed by publishers seeking to promote lesser known authors, but the bag often includes recent books by mainstream authors. Even Big Name authors: my bag this year included books by Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky. It also included books by several people I had never heard of, but that's the whole point of promotion, isn't it?

I couldn't part with any of them. Usually at such conferences there is a place to leave or swap books, and this year was no exception. The problem was, I ended up taking more than I left. The sad thing is, at most of these swap tables there is usually one book that a great number of people abandon from their freebie bags. Can you imagine how bad the poor author must feel seeing stacks of his gift books sitting there, rejected? I couldn't bring myself to dump it, even though it was heavy. Of course, now that I've hauled it home, I have to read it.

And if the gift bag didn't provide enough books, there are people who will thrust books upon you, in hallways, at parties. How can you say no? The (usually unknown) author is standing in front of you, his (or her) precious work outstretched—what are you going to say? I hate the cover? I've never heard of you, now go away? I was raised to be polite, so I take the book. It may be a wonderful book, but I haven't read it yet. I haven't read the one I got that way last year, from two Scandinavian authors who were all but flinging their first book at everyone who walked by them. But I still have it.

For the first time, this year I mailed a box of books back after the conference. It cost about as much as the excess weight fee on my suitcase would have, and I didn't have to lug another twenty pounds of books through airports. A bargain all around.

But that's only part of the rampant book problem. I'm reading broadly for my forthcoming Irish series, and the first book in the series in due to my editor in a few months. I've been doing research on Ireland, mainly genealogy, for a decade now, and I've collected quite a few books, including classic references on Irish history, the Famine, etc. Many of those will give me a few hundred years of history, but not what's going on there now. For that I need recent histories, and books by current authors. Given that Ireland has been going through rapid and extreme upheavals over the past decade, I have to look critically at the source and the date of any book I pick up now, if I want to catch a glimpse of the Celtic Tiger and the devastation it left in its wake.

A perfect example:  the description of the Celtic Tiger,
and the description of its demise

Plus I'm throwing a young and not overeducated young American woman into the mix, and she has her own perspective from growing up in the heavily Irish communities south of Boston. I'm looking forward to the clash of cultures. But I want to get it right, which means more reading. I don't know if I'm glad or sorry that Whitey Bulger has finally been caught: he provided some great mythology about Southie, and there was even a theory that he was hiding somewhere in West Cork, which is where my series is set. So there's another problem: if I'd written this a year ago, I would look foolish. Who knows—by the time this book hits the shelves, Ireland could have come roaring back to fiscal health, or equally likely, it and several other European Union countries could have declared bankruptcy and trashed the global economy. How do I handle that?

And if that weren't enough, a well-meaning friend sent me a link to a site which offers free ebooks on Irish history and family records. The list is sixteen pages long, in teeny print. There is no way I have time to read even a smattering of them. The TBR pile of print books about Ireland is already three feet high and teetering.

So how do I cope with this avalanche? I have already acknowledged to myself that it is almost physically painful to give away or refuse any book. I mean, it's a book! I can't do it! And yet, I'm surrounded with stacks of books, for research or written by friends or much praised by critics, that I want to read. And there simply isn't enough time to do it all.

Alas, not my library, but I can dream (it's the Trinity College Library
in Dublin)

STUFF

by Sheila Connolly

I was planning to write a post about how we accumulate Things in the course of our lives, and then become stymied with what to do with them all.  Then a couple of weeks ago I came upon an article in the New York Times Sunday magazine written by Carina Chocano ('Underneath Every Hoarder Is a Normal Person Waiting to Be Dug out'), and she said many interesting things about hoarding, its history, and our cultural fascination with it.  Plus she said them well, and I'm not going to repeat all her points here.  However, I think she missed two important aspects of Keeping Things.

I live in an 1870 Victorian house, that most people would consider large--you know, twin parlors with sliding doors, nine-foot ceilings, spacious entrance hall with sweeping mahogany staircase.  There's one problem, though:  a dearth of closets.

Or, I should say, a conspicuous absence of clothing closets.  On the ground floor there is a walk-through butler's pantry with a china closet, and in the dining room there is another china closet with a glass front--I guess that was for the "good" stuff.  There is a pantry closet in the kitchen, and I think there was once a second, long since converted into a powder room. 

But clothes?  Ha!  Coat closet?  Nope, only two rows of wall hooks by the back door.  Bedrooms?  One has no closet at all.  Two have very shallow closets flanking the chimney flue (lined with hooks, but not deep enough for a modern hanger), and the last has both a closet and a linen closet.

To put it simply, the storage in this house is lousy.  Or at least, the easily accessed storage.  We have a full basement--damp.  We also have a full attic--which is either freezing or broiling, may have a mold problem, and is not easy to access, especially carrying anything larger than a breadbox. 

I have a lot of stuff, and I've filled every closet, and a lot of the attic.  In my own defense, let me say that it is not stuff that I acquired; mainly I inherited it.  My grandmother, a fiercely independent woman, lived for the last twenty-plus years of her life in an exquisite studio apartment facing Park Avenue in New York.  Everything she owned was encompassed in that room, plus a walk-in closet and a storage closet on another floor.  She chose carefully and cherished each item she kept.

My mother shared her mother's taste, and kept many of the things that my grandmother relinquished.  One of the first purchases my mother made when she married was a matched pair of glass-fronted corner cupboards, to display "nice" pieces.  I still have them (yes, they're full).


And I inherited all of it.  When my mother died, my sister and I divvied up what we wanted, and sold the rest.  There were still two trucks' worth that we carted away.  The furniture was nicer than anything I had managed to acquire by then, so I was happy to have that.  But it's all the other stufff...and I find it almost physically painful to part with something that carries memories.

Someday my daughter (our only child) will inherit most of this stuff.  Much of it won't mean anything to her, since she doesn't have the memories that I do.  How do I pass those on?  What about the collection of demitasse coffee cups that my grandfather--who I never met--collected and enjoyed, as my mother told me on more than on occasion, cradling the cup in her hand?  What about the pink jade Buddha with a removable fan?  I remember playing "hide the fan" in my grandmother's apartment in the 1950s (we always found it, as you can see).  None of these will mean anything to my daughter.  But how can I get rid of them?  I haven't come up with any answers yet, but I pity my daughter in advance.

The other topic that Chocana didn't address is collecting books.  I've always loved books.  I truly believed that our local library was giving me books to keep (so I hid them under my bed).  My grandmother and my mother read books, usually hardcovers.  I had the full set of Nancy Drew before I was ten.  I started on science fiction in college, then shifted to mysteries, and never looked back--and all this was long before I ever thought about writing myself.  My husband and I collected mysteries when we were first married, and inherited more from his father.

So I have thousands of books, and those are only the ones I chose to keep.  I'll admit up front:  there's not enough time left to me to reread all of them, especially if I want to keep reading new books as they come out, and now I have to read the ones that my many writer friends are producing.  And yet...it's painful to part with a book that I love.

How do you handle it?

Holidays . . . How do you relax after the tree goes up?

By Lonnie Cruse

The holidays have finally officially arrived at our house . . . well, after much hemming and hawing by yours truly. Drag out the household decorations/don't drag out the household decorations? Put up the tree/don't put up the tree? Have the party/don't have the party?

Why all the hem and haw? Our tree from the last several years was huge (over seven foot) and it rotated--don't ask me how. (Yes, I bought the rotating tree stand, but no I don't understand how it worked.) To add to the problem, some of the pre-lit (pre-installed?) lights died and had to be replaced, plus last year the tree got caught in the curtains by the window as it rotated and several ornaments went flying, breaking one of my faves, sigh. Okay, I realize that was probably too much information. But if you are thinking about buying a rotating tree, think again.

Anyhow, a friend has been after me to host my annual ladies' luncheon/ornament swap. The luncheon is usually potluck, usually fairly fattening, and usually relaxed and fun. The ornament swap usually dissolves into a cat fight over who gets to go home with the best ornament, and I usually lose. But my momma didn't raise any dummies, so if I don't get the ornament I want, I find out who brought it and where they got it, and off I go on an ornament hunt. Where was I? Decorating for Christmas.

So, up goes the tree, but what to put on it, given that I've been collecting ornaments for forty-five years or so? Ornaments made by my kids, made by me, given to me, and whatever I could manage to hang onto at the annual ornament swap. No way this new tree would hold all of them without toppling over. No way I could go through all of them and weed some out. Time for plan B. Meaning use ONLY the vintage glass ornament balls I've collected the last few years along with the new bubble lights hubby got me last year.

I have some of the "vintage" bubble lights, by the way, but anything that old would be risky to plug in. And I'm particularly aware of the danger of lighted Christmas decorations this year, as is everyone in or near Paducah, KY, thanks to a three story tall, lighted Christmas tree that set the local Michael's craft store on fire. Thankfully no one was hurt but the store is still in pretty bad shape. And I'm still in mourning until they reopen. Sniff.

With the tree decorated, sans the rotating stand, out came my collection of snowmen to decorate the house, but I did scale back in that area by leaving most of my Santas in storage. Maybe they'll get their chance next year?

Anyhow, the Christmas sugar cookies have been purchased (I gave up baking and icing hundreds of them at a whack when the last bird flew out of my nest) my cinnamon coffee is snuggled in the cabinet ready for use, and I have two new Christmas themed books to read. Not to mention watching my favorite Christmas movies. All of this frivolity after I visit the chiropractor, of course.

So, once the tree is up, the other decos are out, the storage boxes are once again hidden away, the coffee is hot and the cookies are on a plate, the muscle relaxer is near at hand, what is your favorite way to recover from all the reaching, lifting, shopping, wrapping, baking? Read a good book? Listen to Christmas music? Favorite Christmas movie? More Christmas shopping trip? Praying for snow? All of the above?

Book Lust

Sandra Parshall

At a recent book signing, I met a couple who live in a four-room apartment with 8,000 books.

I cannot tell you how deeply I envy them. Our home is bigger than theirs, and we don’t have 8,000 books. I’ll bet we don’t have more than 3,000. But it’s not from lack of trying -- or buying, I should say. I can’t go into a bookstore without wanting to own every volume in it. What in this world is more wondrous, magical, intriguing, alluring than a book? An entire world contained between two covers!

It’s not the content alone that I love. I enjoy the feel of a book in my hands, I admire a sturdy spine, I appreciate an attractive cover and an elegant design. I’m a type junky and always check to see whether the book includes a note about the type. I’m disappointed when I don’t find that information. (My favorite typeface, at least for the moment, is Sabon, which is used in Stephen Booth’s British editions.)

Once I own a book, I never want to let it go. When we moved, about 15 years ago, from one Washington, DC suburb to another, we decided it was a good time to thin our book collection. We went through them all and filled box after box to donate to the Arlington County Central Library’s used book room. As soon as they were gone, I began to suffer the most agonizing remorse. How could I have them go? How could I live without them? For a long time after we moved to the county next door, I made regular trips to the Arlington Library, where -- yes -- I gradually bought back a fair number of the books we had donated. They’re mine. They belong at home with me, not with strangers.

I’m constantly adding new ones, but that doesn’t mean I’ll dump the old ones to make room. We have a Modern Library edition of The Grapes of Wrath with a $1.65 price on the cover. We have one of the early editions of To Kill a Mockingbird, which I consider the greatest American novel ever written. We have a 1910 edition of David Balfour by Robert Louis Stevenson and a copy of Middlemarch that is so old the pages have turned dark brown and I'm almost afraid to handle it.

I’ll admit that I never look inside most books after I’ve read them. I just like to see them on the shelf. A few, though, call me back again and again. Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass still enthrall me after many readings, and make me homesick for a romantic, idealized East Africa that I’ve never seen and which, in truth, probably never existed. It doesn’t have to be real; I can go there anytime I want to by opening a book. I also reread passages from Thomas H. Cook’s psychological suspense novels when I feel as if I’ve forgotten how to write (a dismayingly frequent occurrence). Cook shows me the way. Dinesen’s memoirs, plus To Kill a Mockingbird and one or two of Cook’s novels, are the books I never want to be without.

Occasionally I get the notion that I should reduce the glut of books in our house. But how to do it with minimal trauma? I could try the method I once heard Donna Andrews describe. She has plastic bins in her garage where she places books she’s decided to give away. This gets them out of the house proper without the agony of a sudden, final parting. They’re still there in the garage if she changes her mind. When she’s used to the idea of parting with them, they’re finally donated. Yes, I could try this approach. But I know myself too well. Regardless of where I donated books, if they remained accessible to me I might try to get them back before long, even if I had to pay for them.

But enough about my passion for books. Let’s talk about yours.

How many books do you own?

How many have you bought in the last year?

What is the oldest book you own?

What is the one book you will never part with?

Which book do you reread (in part or in full) most often?

How many books do you own but have never read?

How many books do you give away in an average year?

Do you ask friends and family to buy you books as gifts? Do they -- or do they insist on giving you “something more personal”? (And don’t you just hate that?)