KonMari: Books Edition

I previously KonMari'd my cookbooks, and my digital files on my Kindle, but I spent part of the afternoon today going through the books.  Here's a close-up of the before:

Aside from the mess Elizabeth made on the floor, since she's at that lovely pull-all-the-books-off-the-shelf stage, we had too many.  I went through the kids' books first, and split them into categories.

• Curious George
• Clifford
• Pinkalicious
• Lego
• Superheroes
• Miscellaneous Keep
• Board Books
• Immediate Get Rid Of

After I got them sorted out, I added some less loved titles to the get rid of pile as well.  I let the big kids look through and pick out two books they wanted to keep.  Jonah picked two right away.  Matthew picked one.  Hannah didn't care, since she was hoarding her Daniel Tiger books to make sure I didn't get rid of them.

Then I did the rest of the grown-up books.  These are arranged alphabetically by author, because I'm OCD like that.  If I could keep the kids' books organized in the categories listed above, I would.  It looks pretty.  

My criteria for getting rid of a book was pretty easy.  Have I read it?  If so, would I read it again?  If not, do I still want to read it?  Anything that I am not going to read again (or at all) got added to the pile.  I didn't get rid of any of Jesse's books, but most of the ones on this shelf are ones that were mine before we got married.  His are mostly Jesus books and sociology books, which are in his church office.   

Marie Kondo's rule is to get rid of any book that you haven't read yet, because you would have read it already and it has served its purpose.  I totally disagree with this rule, because I don't have a ton of time to read, but I do have a small pile of books I want to read.  So I kept some.

I also pulled out the chapter books that are kiddie lit, which I'm keeping for homeschool read alouds, and later for the kids to read on their own.  They're not mixed in any more.  I do have to find a different spot for them though, because my horizontal stack on the middle shelf with the kids' books already got pulled down once.

I was able to move some of our photo albums to the top of the bookshelf instead of on the floor next to the shelf.  There's room for more kids' books, which is great, because I will always encourage them to read more! 

It was pretty easy to get rid of books.  I'm a book lover, and I think I will always have more books than I can read, but it's nice to know that that number doesn't really have to be that high.  You can love books and still not have that many.