Maris Kreizman on the joy (and pain) of downsizing
“Books make me so crazy.” This is what my friend, who works part-time as a mover, told me when she found out that my husband and I had found a new place to live and I had a lot of books I needed to pack.
A few weeks ago the apartment where we were living on rent for the last nine years got flooded. The floors and ceilings were damaged, but thank God, all the books were safe. By the time you read this we will have downsized, moving to a new place that won’t have any weird mold growing (a plus!) but will also be a little smaller. This means I have to deal with my book collection, which has grown exponentially over the years with stacks on the floor and stacks of bookshelves in a very particular order.
While sorting through my books I learned some important lessons about editing for the advanced collector who gets pleasure from a wide variety of books in order to use the Kondo method effectively.
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1. It’s time to stop trying to impress some imaginary book reviewer who might one day grace my shelves.
I have a few books on my shelves by authors I feel are like me. Needed Read, but I’ll never really get around to reading. Some of them were bought when I was single and trying to impress whoever I thought would come to my door and clock in that I had read Gogol and Gas. Thank God, I’m not that person anymore. And if I ever decide to read tunnelI can get a copy from the library.
2. I don’t want to be a perfectionist.
It’s great that a new collection of Eve Babitz’s letters and other ephemera is now available, but that doesn’t mean it has to go right next to it. sex and anger. I’ll stick to the classics. As long as I keep the novels and essays that matter most to me, I don’t need every single work of Zadie Smith.
3. If I haven’t read Galley within a year of publication, it’s very unlikely that I will read it.
This is heart breaking. The hype cycle moves so fast that it would be physically impossible for me to keep up. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to try. The books keep coming, even if I still haven’t gotten to that nice-looking essay collection from 2024.
4. You (I) cannot judge a book by its spine, no matter how beautiful it is.
If I had unlimited space I would proudly display my entire collection of NYRB paperbacks with their uniform fonts and pleasing color palettes. But for now, I have to limit pretty books to books I’ve read and loved or that I want to read one day (which is still a lot of NYRB titles).
5. Sometimes new information can really change my feelings about an author.
That is to say, I have kept the two Alice Munro story collections that I love most, but the rest are being donated.
6. I have to abandon some of my small projects.
When Twitter was still a place to talk about books, I asked users what their favorite underrated novel of all time was. The responses were wonderful and I ordered a ton of titles from the responses, some new, some used from thrift books. Since then he has been staring at me accusingly. Years later I had to admit to myself that I would never be able to read them, which involved understanding time management, mortality, and other unanswered questions.
7. When friends come over, their books should be on display.
This is not negotiable. All my friends’ books are kept there.
8. I keep revisiting books I want to keep.
The most important rule in book collecting is to make sure that the books that you have found truly revelatory are fully underlined and marked, easily accessible. Seeing them every day becomes a part of your personality and for me it is one of the best feelings in the world.
9. There will always be more books.
I’m not crazy enough to believe that just because my collection is under about 300 titles at the moment, I’ll stay that way for long. And isn’t that great?
10. Tip your movers well.
If you insist on making keeping a bunch of books an integral part of your personality, you should improve with the people who have to deal with them.
