Books | Organizing Goddess

When Books Become Memorabilia

In my recent post entitled “When Decor Becomes Clutter“, I explained that I had removed the framed photographs from my living room to keep them safe and to prevent them from getting covered in construction dust while we are undergoing remodeling. One of the benefits of that exercise is that I can now see all of the books. As a result, I’ve been noticing a particular book that I’ve owned for a long time and that has been bringing tears…

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Would You Keep This If You Were Moving?

I think it’s pretty clear that we will keep accumulating stuff until we run out of room. Sometimes we continue even after we’ve run out of room. (That’s usually when people contact a Professional Organizer.) If you’re someone, like me, who has an abundance of of storage space in your home, then it may take a while before you run out of space. So I’ve developed a question that helps me identify things I should let go of even if…

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Do You Still Have Travel Books?

When I’m helping clients who are overwhelmed with books, we inevitably come across a collection of travel books on their shelves. In the days before you could easily find information about faraway places via the internet, we relied on glossy, fact-filled books by companies like Fodor’s, Frommer’s, and Baedeker. These books not only had listings of sights to see, they also had recommendations of hotels and restaurants. Many of my clients are reluctant to part with these books, even though…

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My Mother’s Books

When I was a child, my mother owned just a few books that she had amassed during her girlhood and early adulthood. Having grown up during the Depression, neither she nor my father owned a lot of books despite being voracious readers. The public library was a godsend for them growing up, and that habit continued through their adult years. From her college years, there was her textbook from her class on the Romantic poets as well as the complete…

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Redefining My Relationship with Books

For the past three years, I’ve kept track of how many books I read each year. The first year I did that (2020) happened to be the pandemic shutdown year. I read 82 books that year, not surprisingly since there wasn’t much else to do. In 2021, I outdid myself by reading 91 books. Then in 2022, I read 92 books. This was a shock to me, as I went into 2022 knowing that my schedule was going to be…

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