Kate on Criteria for Culling the Collection. I have trouble with this task as I think most bibliophiles do. My house is full of books. I can’t shelve all of my books. But I have another reason for keeping certain books that Kate doesn’t mention: I think, “Yes, I’ve already read it, but my children will want to read this book someday. All eight of them. Or my grandchildren will read it.” I don’t have any grandchildren yet. So I keep the books, lots of books.
A Small Death in Lisbon not only sounds like a good book to add to the LIST, but this marketing by chance and word of mouth story is a good story. Authors and publishers take note. Handselling and interpersonal publicity does work sometimes, but you can’t really control it. Only encourage it.
“I feel no guilt whatsoever about being a slow reader, or about not having read all the great books, or about abandoning a book halfway through because I’m bored. There are two things in life one must never do out of a sense of duty, and one is read.”
Not only are the children and grandchildren a reason to save it, but a reason to save multiple copies so they can each have their own. Yikes!