2009/12/30

Weeding the Personal Library

Once again I seem to have anticipated a column in the NYT.  On November 29 I posted a piece about weeding my collection, and now I find an article from Sunday, Dec. 27, in the online, "Room for Debate" discussions, Books You Can Live Without.  Several authors and the owner of the Strand bookstore offer their thoughts on "what to cull and what to keep".

I enjoyed what all of them had to say, and not all of them were willing to consider weeding their collections.  I liked Billy Collins's remark, "I am well into the second phase of life when one begins to enjoy getting rid of all the stuff one enjoyed accumulating in phase one."  Many of the comments by readers were insightful too, though the column clearly hit home.  There are 324 of them as I write.

Once I made a start, it got easier to make decisions.  The Tarot, by Mouni Sadhu, how I devoured it and sucked out its marrow  when I was seventeen!  Mouni Sadhu made the journey to the East, finally taking refuge with the sage, Ramana Maharshi.  His book is a masterpiece of the French school of occultism.  And it's in my rear-view mirror.  Bye, Mouni Sadhu!  Four cartons so far.

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