Tips For Deciding What To Declutter From Your Book Collection

Owning an expansive book collection can be invigorating and offers an aesthetically pleasing addition to a home office, living room, or personal library. Having a variety of reading material means your friends and family will never get bored when visiting, especially on those rainy days when curling up with a nice book seems ideal. However, while having an extensive collection of everything from encyclopedias to paperbacks can be a vibe, too much of anything can cause clutter. It might be time for an overhaul if your shelves are overstuffed with past reads or piles of novels covering your floors.

There are several ways to make your home library look more cohesive and approachable, and Clutter recommends keeping paperbacks and hardbacks separated to produce a cleaner, more coherent effect. You can also color code books or arrange them according to different heights or sizes. Regardless of helpful tips for making a massive collection of books look good, once there are too many, it can be hard to control the chaos. Instead of holding on to every title you've ever read or been given, why not try these tricks to make space for those new books you will inevitably obtain?

Books can provide endless pleasure and comfort, but not all pages are meant to stay in your collection forever. Some titles are helpful for a particular purpose or need and can be given away to benefit others. Not only does this free up space on your shelves and surfaces, but someone new might use those books you let go of. The first thing to do is go through each tome and see if it is a necessary part of daily life. Will you re-read it? Can it be of service to future endeavors? Basmo suggests taking the time to determine if you'll re-read each book again. Those you won't are an obvious choice for the "declutter" pile and can even be given as gifts to loved ones rather than donated. Is there anything as special as sharing the magic of a title that spoke to you with someone else?

Certain publications are easy to give away because they already provided you with the information you sought. One category you can probably get rid of without guilt is anything of a DIY nature. Craft books, hobby literature, and anything else under DIY was helpful while learning a new trade or skill, but they don't offer many services once you're experienced. Remove these books from your shelves and donate them to a local charity, used bookstore, or Goodwill, where others can access them and learn from their pages.

Next up are your travel guides. These books probably gave you some amazing memories and pointers for past trips, but they aren't necessarily a category that needs a permanent spot on your bookshelf. Unless there is a particular tome that you plan to reuse for upcoming holidays, make room for new guides or reads by letting go of old ones. There is no harm in keeping a treasured travel book full of notes, earmarks, and other additions, but most of these informational pieces can be given away. The world is constantly changing, and a Washington Post article notes that some guides could become outdated depending on how long you own them. If you plan to revisit places after a long time away, invest in an updated title and let the old one go.

Anything outdated is an easy option for the "go" box. Reference materials can easily be found online, so older tomes are just taking up prime real estate on your bookshelf. Cookbooks you haven't used is another category that should be relatively easy to get rid of or pass along. Skim each recipe, and if there aren't enough or you don't find them interesting, remove the book from your collection. There will be other cookbooks — ones you will actually cook with!