@pkinsale: I think by "toss" they meant "get rid of" rather than "throw away." YMMV.

Anyway - I kind of like this idea. I'm going to try to implement it this weekend. I have *way* too many books that I never plan on reading again (yes, like the Scarlet Letter).

Certainly there are those classics that I get the urge to pick up every once in a while, or that I just find too valuable to let go of, ala 1984 or Moby Dick, but a lot of the pulp fiction from the last 50 years I have laying around is going to go. I can't imagine I'll be reading [random 1982 sci fi novel] again any time soon, at least not with so much other stuff I haven't yet read.

fluxrad

Toss a book? Why not donate it?

pkinsale

I do use the library a lot, but I'm actually in the process of adding to our home library because my wife is pregnant, and I want our daughter to have access to all the books I loved as a kid.

MikeT

I agree with sciencegeek. Also, there is just something about reading books on a computer screen that just isn't the same as curling up on a couch with a worn-in hardcover.

For me, going back and re-reading my favorite books also means reading over the comments I've left in the margins over the years.

--Scott

Scott Wegner

VizionQuest

Sure, and next time I'm taking a nice long train trip and want to read The Scarlet Letter, I'll just whip out my internet connected laptop and read it.

No thanks, I think I'd be more persuaded to part with books if this article were about using the library more.

sciencegeek

I just got done purging my bookshelves. My work requires me to refer to a lot of varied information and literary classics, so it was a bit tricky, but I kept in mind something a friend said recently. He pointed out that when you belong to Amazon Prime you can get a copy of almost any book in two days without paying for shipping. It's worth the chance that I might have to spring for another copy of some recent novel if the benefit is rationalizing my living space (I have a lot of books). Also, I live two blocks from the library! I have a pretty good sense of which books I might suddenly need to refer to in my work, so I felt more free than ever before to haul several boxes to the local used book store. It felt great!

Lauram

@VizionQuest: "check on amazon to see if it's worth anything before you toss it!"

Or you can try selling them on Half Dot Com.

BlogsOfSteel

I'm planning to get rid of most of my books when I move. The only ones I'm keeping are reference materials, and whatever I haven't read yet. The rest will be given away! I love the idea of someone else enjoying a book that'd be otherwise gathering dust.

I have never understood the tendency to hoard books, especially cheap paperbacks that are easy to replace. If you get the urge to reread it someday, why not borrow it or buy it again?

lisact

I think most bibliophiles who would have a vast amount of books will likely scoff at this advice (I know I do). Books can be such good conversation starters. Someone comes overs and browses your bookshelf while you're in the kitchen, see a book they've read, and boom: instant conversation. Few people would browse through your computer documents (let alone be allowed to), and see your eBook of "The Scarlet Letter."

My advice: donate the books you didn't enjoy reading and keep those that you did like. Physical media ftw!

Ninjeff

Years ago I traded in several book cases worth of old books for a library card. Our regional library has a used book store to help raise funds. They also have a great web site where I can search for & order any book in any of the libraries and have it shipped to the closest branch(5 blocks), in a couple of days I get an email that its ready so I can bike over & pick it up. Granted, this takes some advanced planning if your are intending to travel.

Recently, they've added down-loadable media for electronic viewing/listening, but I'm not much of a fan of that. I'd much rather have a real book in my hands.

When cleaning out, I did keep all of my books that I'd read more than 5 times, they're old friends.

The library is a great place to spend some quiet time and I always come home with more books than I was intending to get. Finding those hidden gems on the shelves is like winning a treasure hunt!

BlogsOfSteel

I don't know, I kind of like to think of my stacks of reading material as a "library" where I can take the books out and look at them, read a bit here and there, on the can if I like.

BenRad

You have offended my sense of packrat-i-ness. How dare you, LifeHacker...

And on the other hand, beware of where you donate your books. I work at a library where books get donated all the time, and we have two dumpster bins of books thrown out/recycled ever week. Sometimes twice a week. Its seriously disturbing.

cde

check on amazon to see if it's worth anything before you toss it!

VizionQuest

This just in: Get rid of garbage if you want to have less garbage. LIFEHACKER EXCLUSIVE!

Rajio

But... but... Books = Treasure.

Must horde treasure. Must not toss!

Wit

@pkinsale: right on..

i agree with getting rid of clutter, especially with books. if you don't think you or your loved ones will ever want to read it, study from it, whatever again then it should go. sell it on amazon, or at your local used store. give it away to a charity. please, only put them in the landfill as a last resort.

chaos421

Can I keep my Penguin edition of the Scarlet Letter?

amorphous

This is perhaps one of the least hacky things on lifehack yet. Suggesting I toss out my glorious dead-tree books? Insane, I tell you.

darundal

@me:

Er, I totally meant "hoard." Too many homonyms; too few braincells.

Wit

Why not trade them at [www.paperbackswap.com] instead?

SteveW

I love my books, never getting rid of them ... I only chuck bad school books

AvatarZ

NO.

Worst Lifehack ever.

DannoHung

OX4

Wow - seriously, cde? My library takes the donated books and holds a quarterly fund-raising booksale... where I seem walk off with two dumpster bins of books, generally. The last day is a bag sale, so not much really seems to linger around.

They're pretty popular and I'm going to have to assume they make some decent money off of it, considering it's been going on for years. Oh, and "friends" of the library get a preview day if they pay annual dues. Not a bad deal, really.

Oh, and for lifehackery goodness, I do know quite a few people who pay 25 cents to get their popular series books from the sale, read them at their leisure, and then re-donate them for the next sale. It's sort-of like borrowing it from the library, except without the overdue fines.

Wit

I've been using Bookmooch.com for some time now, and I think anyone who wants to get rid of books that he/she does not need any more yet want to keep the books read by people and more alive than being on a dusty shelf should check it out. The principle is easy, 1. add books to your bookmooch inventory and gain points, 2. wait for people to 'mooch' (i.e. ask for) books from you and gain more points, 4. send your books. 4. use the points to ask for books from other people, all over the world. The only cost is postage, and the books get to live a healthy, well travelled and read life..

greenwatch

Deprong Mori

NO. Stupid Lifehacker.

inboulder1

Tossing away books? Sacrilege!!

ww2db.com

It's true; books do not necessarily equal clutter.

However, if you do need to thin the herd a bit, BookCrossing is a good, karmic way to do it!

FredicvsMaximvs

For books that you don't want to read might might want to reference:

1. Take it to Kinkos, officemax, etc, and get them to cut the binding off.

2. Feed it into your Fujitsu Scansnap

3. You now have a pdf version that's searchable!

4. Throw away the paper!!

olivercmit

Unclutterer can get a little reactionary in its dematerializing campaign. I have a Sony Reader, which acts as a virtual printer, but I can't bring myself to read fiction on the thing, nor would I recommend that other people read The Scarlet Letter in digital form.

Books are social and cultural touchstones, not just vessels for content. The reason a book is clutter is because it no longer serves a purpose in your life, not because it takes up shelf space.

Andre Kibbe

are you kidding? i think in our strange quest to become ever more efficient, we've forgotten that some "clutter" is essential to a happier existence. i admit i don't keep old books for any utilitarian reason - it's just a reminder of how far i've come in my search for knowledge. if you look at great figures of the past, most of them kept vast personal libraries. are you gonna tell ben franklin that he could be more efficient if he only "uncluttered" a bit more?

throw away your raggedy sweatshirts and keep your books - they breathe life into a mundane existence.

nunchuks

Wow, some of us love our worldly possessions don't we?

IMHO it is a profound waste of the energy (mental & physical) that went into producing a book to buy it, read it, then put in our private book museum with all the other once read books, never to share it with someone.

I love beat up books, when I find one at the library I know it will be GOOD!

This is getting interesting, great subject!

BlogsOfSteel

I have a vast personal library of which I've read every title. I keep them for three reasons.
1.Lone them out to friends and family.

2.Reference material

3.I want my son to appreciate reading and enjoy discovering a book that he had never heard of. He can ask me questions about the title if he wishes, but the physical book is there for him to look at either way.
My parents had a library room when I was a kid and I could go into the room and read whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I truly enjoyed that and will pass it along to my son.
I'll unclutter something else in my house and keep the books. You can give yours away if you wish.

gravitus

I have a vast personal library of which I've read every title. I keep them for three reasons.

1.Lone them out to friends and family.
2.Reference material
3.I want my son to appreciate reading and enjoy discovering a book that he had never heard of. He can ask me questions about the title if he wishes, but the physical book is there for him to look at either way.

My parents had a library room when I was a kid and I could go into the room and read whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I truly enjoyed that and will pass it along to my son.

I'll unclutter something else in my house and keep the books. You can give yours away if you wish.

gravitus

Moving across the country will change many opinions about the value of a large library. I have weeded out any books I am likely to find at the library or the local used bookstore. This means essentially all novels, except for my most cherished childhood novels (and that nice cloth-bound edition of The Lord of the Rings). Most of my library now consists of nonfiction books in my professional field. I still had to mail about 360 lbs of books. Thanks for media rate, USPS. I just wish that all my boxes had arrived. :(

John David

I love my private library. I find that many times I'll notice a title on the shelf and it will bring forth a pleasant thought or feeling that I haven't had since last I read the book.
I'll weed out the outdated reference books but that is it.
As I once discovered myself, one day my grandchildren and great grandchildren will be able to learn who I was not only by the books I read but more importantly by the books I kept.

TravelingMan

@Andre Kibbe: Agreed that the de-cluttering movenet can get a little...extreme. "Why have two spoons in your house when you can only use one at a time?"

OTOH, we went through a lot of books recently and donated a lot of reference-style books because when I've had questions about those topics, I've just searched on the Internet. It's easier to look up gardening questions online than it is to look through books.

Also, most computer books have a useful life of about two weeks.

Fiction books are another matter. Great books deserve to be re-read, and a computer screen or an expensive e-reader doesn't cut it.

edosan

I've gone from having rooms full of books to having only 2 small bookcase's worth. One for fiction, and one for non-. I really think about which books I want to keep now. I use the library. I don't need to own them, unless they're out of print of frequently referenced.

Purging them was painful--I loved my books--but I'm happier not having to move them, dust them, store them. It was a good thing to do. I feel lighter.

zeldabee

Another idea - for New England at least:
GotBooks.com
They will even come to you.
They will also pack up a box of books and ship them to our service people over seas for their reading pleasure.
[www.gotbooks.com]

gregp

The one thing I would never throw out is my books. I could happily toss DVDs, my baby blanket, Cadbury Mini Eggs -- but books? Sorry, no.

RocketRockit

People get rid of books? WILLINGLY? The only times I've divested myself of books is when I've given them away as gifts.

Bruce_A

I have no desire to part with any of my books, whatsoever. The closest I come to getting rid of them is to lend them to friends or relatives. So many people have so much crap in their houses, I feel no guilt whatsoever in surrounding myself with my books.

If it is a book, like a textbook or specialty book of some kind, that I know I will never use again, I take it to Half Price Books and sell it/trade it in. I usually buy about 50% of my books at HPB anyway.

itguykelly

My problem is that I have multiple copies of the same book. I have usually at least two copies of my favorites, one for looking pretty and one for reading in the tub. Most of my books have fluffy edges.

e-gadgetjunkie

Ray Bradbury would be highly disappointed to read this.

Books are a backup of human knowledge. And relying on others and computers to safeguard it for you is foolish.

blackhelos

I understand the need to unclutter shelves but tossing seems a bit extreme. A few people have suggested other options and I give you one more: why not set them free?

BookCrossing is perfect for this type of thing and trust me, once you get started, it's hard to stop!

themarina

@Bruce_A: "People get rid of books? WILLINGLY?"

Looking to my left, I see a copy of Unix in a Nutshell from 5/97. Next to it is a copy of Unix in a Nutshell from 12/97. There's a Solaris 8 cert book, two CCNA books from at least four years ago, and two PHP3 programming guides.

This is approximately one-sixth of the bookshelf to my left. To my right there's another full bookshelf filled with non fiction, much of it I'll never touch again. Downstairs there are two more like these, and two media centers housing random paperbacks. The closet in my office has two shelves that are also filled with books. There are also two boxes of books waiting to go to Good Will, but that have not as of yet made it there.

There are a number of large tomes on anything from estate law to mathematical economics supporting two coffee tables in my living room.

I guess my point is, if anyone's looking to learn how to program PHP3 or read The Scions of Shannara, please email me.

fluxrad

Before you go throwing out all those books, check Amazon.com and Half.com to see if their worth some cash.

I've found that Amazon and Half are both great places to buy or sell books but each one has their advantages. To hear the full story, check out my review here:

ToMuse.com

VizionQuest

I think that people really need to avail themselves of libraries both for financial reasons and for space reasons. There's no reason why you have to possess a book to enjoy it unless you have a very strong attachment to it. Libraries can get you nearly anything via interlibrary loan even if they don't have it on their shelves and you can take a library book on a business trip as well as a book you own.

The whole idea that books are sacred and have to be kept around is an odd one to me. Sure, I have books I like to keep around for impulse reading, but there are some books I know I won't re-read for years that I can just check out of the library when the urge hits me in the future.

The need to own the books rather than borrow them for free, particularly keeping them in great quantities is another manifestation of a consumerist culture and materialism though it is one that generally is viewed positively because owning books is equated with intelligence, though honestly, the connection is dubious.

Also, honestly, nothing beats reading on a PDA for me, especially in bed at night as it requires no external lighting and is easy to hold in one hand.

ShariC

Can someone suggest something to do with these old technical books I've got laying around. While my old C++ and Java books may be useful in the future, things like Photoshop 4 certainly won't. I suppose I could just toss them in the garbage or recycling bin but I'm not even sure you can throw a book that thick in with the regular recycling.

sinz

I second the "read from a PDA" habit. I carry a library of material in a Flash card that is in my iPAQ. I like to read amateur fiction from fanfiction.net, and I save print-friendly HTML of news articles from nytimes.com, etc. I couldn't possibly carry all that around as paper!

If I want commercial books, I purchase from ereader.com or fictionwise.com. The amount of memory taken by a book is negligible, so I can carry the equivalent of a roomful of books on a 2 Gb card, if I so desire.

Oh! It's also searchable, and I don't get silverfish.

DanYHKim

BLAH BLAH BLAH

I'M NOT LISTING TO YOUR SACRILEGIOUS REMARKS!

BLAH BLAH BLAH

HEATHEN! BARBARIAN! VISIGOTH!

Throw away my papery friends? My inky buddies? Never!

Boter

Most of the books in my house are books I read 15-20 years ago and have a sentimental attachment to. Then there are 2 shelves of books I picked up at yard sales for cheap that I may or may not ever read. I never buy new books anymore. If I want to read something I just reserve it online at the library, and they email me when its ready to be picked up at my local branch.

AndyFromTucson

If you're never going to read it again and only have it around for reference, tossing it is a great idea. Not only do you free up space, but now you can search for the thing you want using all the power of computers.

Besides, The Scarlet Letter? Ugh. You wouldn't find that on my shelf to begin with.

aikoto

Here's a good page on how to scan your own books. If you have (or buy) the Fujitsu ScanSnap, it will take you only about 10 minutes including cutting the pages per this useful guide:

[www.proportionalreading.com]

I've done this for several books, and the ScanSnap made them searchable. I added a script accessed via Launchy that immediately searches the specific book for a keyword. You can find this script on my blog at (www.tipninja.com.)

Jeff Axelrod

(long comment is long)

It's scary to see so many super-efficient people online who are certain they will never read certain books again, and who consider volumes to be clutter.

I grew up in a house full of books- my childhood collection alone counted around two thousand, and you can imagine how many my parents have accumulated throughout the years. What this meant was that I could find a book on pretty much any subject on the shelves. Sometimes I was searching for a specific theme, sometimes the title, the book's format or the cover piqued my curiosity. I grew up in a house where reading was easy, natural- if you want your kids to love books and learning new things, a real life collection you can touch and browse is invaluable.

Now that we have the internet, books are perhaps not the first source for up-to-date information. I can't remember the last time I browsed that impressive Brittanica shelf in my dad's office. However, it will be a long time before e-books can replace a real library. The media are so different, you just can't compare them.

So your e-book is searchable and doesn't take up physical space (if you don't count your computer.) Nice. Can you take it everywhere? Can you access it everywhere? Can you easily lend it to a friend without invoking the internet, a cd or a printer? Can you read it when the power is out? Can you annotate and browse it just as comfortably as a real volume? Can you put notes on the margins? Can you look at your bookshelf and, at a glance, see all your books? Do they have a cover, shape and size which immediately trigger memories of the content and the situation in which you read them?

In some situations I bet an e-book is more handy, but don't be ridiculous and say it's always better to have a copy of a book on your computer than to keep one on the shelf. I can't even imagine a situation where I need to study reference from five different books at once and am forced to alt+tab on my computer to see the content, scrolling back and forth because my screen isn't big enough. It's like spreading everything out on the table so you see it versus having to dig through a stack of papers every time- the fact that the stack is able to highlight where your desired content could be is of little help unless you know precisely what you're looking for.

Real books ftw.

Oh, and for the library advocates- yes, of course we should use the libraries. Sadly, not all of us live near good libraries. My university didn't have a page of material on the subject of my thesis- every book I have on the subject had to be shipped in from abroad. Good on you if you live next to a great library, but remember it's luck and a privilege, not a worldwide standard. I have a reason for treasuring my book collection.

Tymian

Books are so rarely clutter.

This glib and flippant crap is beneath you, Lifehacker.

doublej

To me, having a library as large as possible is a staple in life (just below owning a house on my priorities list). I scour the streets late at night, all hollow eyes, torn-up clothes and rotting flesh, growling "boooooks, booooooks". So, no, you can't even get my books from my cold dead hands. Shoo!

Dalinae

I think the intentions of this life hack are great, but I have strongly disagree with this idea.

I am a minimalist, and all for reducing clutter in my life, and putting some value in the possessions of my community over my own. However, I am also paranoid, and that will always trump my minimalist attitude. I think there real, good reason for holding onto books. Never trust that just because some work is freely available in an un-editted form today, means that it will always be available in that form. Our books will never change.

We can already find examples of edits happening with old movies (changing guns to walkie talkies in E.T. comes to mind). If no one keeps their old copies, the new version could someday become the only one that is available to us. (Just using this as an example)

Suggesting that we keep some digital form that we can rely on instead of bulky books would be something to consider, but completely getting rid of our own copies could come back to haunt us.

provolone

I think the intentions of this life hack are great, but I have to strongly disagree with this idea.

I am a minimalist, and all for reducing clutter in my life, and putting some value in the possessions of my community over my own. However, I am also paranoid, and that will always trump my minimalist attitude. I think there real, good reason for holding onto books. Never trust that just because some work is freely available in an unedited form today, means that it will always be available in that form. Our books will never change.

We can already find examples of edits happening with old movies (changing guns to walkie talkies in E.T. comes to mind). If no one keeps their old copies, the new version could someday become the only one that is available to us. (Just using this as an example)

Suggesting that we keep some digital form that we can rely on instead of bulky books would be something to consider, but completely getting rid of our own copies could come back to haunt us.

provolone

Encouraging people to throw books away is just plain stupid. Used book stores exist for a reason, and textbooks usually have little purpose once the semester is over -- so sell them.

But encouraging people to toss out classic novels is just ridiculous (as plenty of others have said).

elcasey

I am disgusted.

trumpetfalcon

Does anyone know a good site for bookswapping for Canadians? Some of the swap sites I've visited are for the US only.

Silver_Back

I loved making discoveries in my parents' bookshelves. How sad to think my children might not experience that.

Then again, we do have a fabulous library system, and because of it we are very careful about which books we purchase. I suppose I could go through my personal book stash and ask myself "would I have bought that book in the first place if I could have found it through my local library?"

And my kids do love making discoveries at the library.

superdewa