Over the past ten years, I have moved three times. Each time I aspire to purge my home of anything that I no longer use. With each move, more items have been given away, donated, or tossed. Much to the horror of avid readers, that includes a large number of books. But don’t despair, as long as the book is in fair to good condition, it finds a new home through Friends of the Library or travels to the Philippines where students are in desperate need of books to read.

What remains on my bookshelves are the books most important to me—and a small selection that my husband wants to keep. Before you judge, I am not being selfish in hoarding most of the shelf space. I read far more books than he does.

So what is left after all my purging?

FICTION

On the top shelf, I have my HP collection—books that encouraged my children to read during their years in school. Happily, that translated into a lifetime habit of reading. My youngest in particular is still a big fan of fantasy.

I don’t have a lot on my fiction shelf—just my Jane Austen and Jane Austen inspired favorites sitting beside The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. (And if you know my work, you know that my stories are set on the neighboring Isle of Jersey.) You’ll also find a few others which are signed copies of author friend’s novels. Passing great stories along to others helps keep my shelves less cluttered—something I need in order for me to breathe. The rest live on forever in my Kindle library.

REFERENCE

I like to keep books I refer to regularly in physical form. There are far more than I even remembered! The largest category is books on how to write from punctuation to romance beats to character development and creating dialogue. Dear to my heart, and nearby almost every time I write, is the one book that, as a writer, I cannot live without—The Emotion Thesaurus. Recently, I added The Emotional Wound Thesaurus to my collection, which I will believe will be a go-to for my next novella.

An important category for my research is books about life in the medieval era. One on my TBR pile features important women of the time. If only I had more time to devote to reading.

Another category, not so large, is books about the history of the Isle of Jersey and its important personages.

INSPIRATIONAL

A special category on my bookshelf is a couple of books about setting goals and two from my mother by Alexandra Stoddard, Living a Beautiful Life and Daring to Be Yourself. These are good reminders to live my life with intention.

OTHER

My husband loves history, so he has several volumes about or written by famous people like President Lincoln and American generals.

But the one treasure of his that I hide behind the others is a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People signed by Dale Carnegie. This poor volume has a heart-breaking story. One of my children as a baby grabbed it off the shelf and tore out several pages. I remain completely at a loss on how to repair this disaster from decades ago. Someday I will have to search for a place that might be able to repair it.

And yet—for all this talk of wanting to be a minimalist—do you know what I dream of in my next house? A room lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves, filled with books, books and more books…plus a few cozy chairs to sink into while enjoying a cup of hot cocoa and a great read!