Speaking of Purging

I'm a reader, I have books books and more books. I kept most of my text books from College and I have authors that I haunt the book store in order to read them. My favourite art history class at Emily Carr was one that compared literature to film. We had a reading list that looked like it belonged to an english major and we got to watch a film every week.

I have a fairly good selection of Canadian Literature including both Margarets and a number of signed books from contemporary writers visited and read at Red Deer College. I used to be an English Major and I had hopes of being published but not the discipline for self editing and rewriting.

My secret reading indulgence is fantasy. I blame Tolkein, I read The Hobbit for the first time at the age of 7. I've re-read it numerous times and I'll probably read many many many many many many more times yet. I have a number of fantasy novels that I have read and re-read. I've been packing them around with me for the last 15 years.

They say not to judge a book by it's cover but I buy my fantasy books based on the cover art. I can remember studying the cover art for The Hobbit, probably because I was still at an age where I liked picture books; and if a fantasy novel's cover isn't interesting to me I'll pass it by. I've probably missed out on any number of good reads this way but I've never been disapointed with the ones I have chosen. I also choose Miranda's books by the artwork. I guess I've never outgrown liking picture books.

As we were packing up our books for our most recent move I decided to let some of them go. On one hand it's a little sad, the stories have meant enough to me that I've revisited them more than a few times; on another it's kind of liberating to cull tehm from my library. So I have about 50 books that I'm looking for new homes for. I've emailed the library to see if they'll take them but haven't heard back yet. Selling them to a used book store is kind of sad. I've spent hundreds of dollars on these books and they have become a part who I am. Having a stranger rummage through them and then offer a monetary amount (which will inevitably be much less than I'd like to get for them) kind of feels a little strange.