A hoard of thoughts about KonMari

Since it’s currently impossible to avoid reading about—and therefore thinking about—Marie Kondo and readers’ reactions to getting rid of books, I’m weighing in. But I’m going to do it in unranked bullet points because my thoughts about this are definitely not tidy.

• Noooo! My books!
• Only 30 books! Are you serious?!?
• …Everyone’s number is clearly different. People who don’t read that often don’t need that many books in their home.
• …Also, there are libraries. You can totally get away with not buying books.
• But authors definitely need to be paid more.
• Also, don’t just dump your KonMari’ed books off at the library. We probably can’t use them either. There are other options.
• Getting rid of books is curiously hard. I’m not sure what it is. It might be our cultural aversion to book burning and we don’t want to be seen as destroying books by discarding them. Who knows, but a lot of us share a deep dislike of throwing away a book.
• Book hoarding is totally a thing, though. If you have piles of books around the house and can only make your way around your house via goat trails, it’s a hoard.
• But I plan going to read all of those!
• …but there are some I probably won’t read because my reading tastes have changed. There are days when I review my to-read list and ask myself what the hell I was thinking when I put some book on it. Looking at a list of books I ambitiously decided to read does occasionally spark guilt or weariness rather than excitement or joy.
• At least my books are on shelves and in alphabetical order. It doesn’t look like a hoard. Also I weed.
• I accidentally rebought a book I already owned, so maybe I’m not as tidy as I thought. Oops.
• My books! I curate my collection. It’s full of books that mean a lot to me. Even the “trashy books.”
• A lot of readers get antsy when we don’t have enough reading material around us. In desperation we (okay, I) will read shampoo labels.
• People need to stop giving Marie Kondo a hard time. All of the criticism I’ve seen of her is based on either misinterpreting her recommendations or over attachment to things.
• People who advocate ignoring recommendations to declutter and get rid of books that we’re not going to read/use/etc. are also off target. Like I mentioned above, reading tastes change.
• Why hang on to a books we aren’t going to read or didn’t like when it’s taking up the place of another books we might love?

What thoughts do you have about Marie Kondo and your books?

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