I love Marie Kondo, the cute Japanese lady who coaches people to take stock of their possessions, keeping only those that “spark joy.” Her method has a twist: she asks us to consider not what we want to throw out, but what we want to hold on to. She tells us to go through our stuff in this order: clothes, books, papers, knick-knacks and gadgets and tools, then sentimental objects. The idea is that clothes are the easiest category to sort out, mementos the hardest.
But what’s simple for one person may be complicated for another. Would Kondo’s sequence work for you? It didn’t for me. I couldn’t do my books second. I’m too attached to them. They teach me things, tell me who I am, add warmth to my living room. But did I really need to hang onto Plato’s Dialogues and The History of the English Language? Maybe I’d been keeping them on my bookshelf to impress guests in case they noticed. I’d read these books decades ago. They hadn’t sparked joy then and they didn’t spark it now.
Kondo believes that your possessions should reflect who you are, not who you were. I happen to have an edition of The Wizard of Oz. It doesn’t reflect who I am now, but the story gave me so much pleasure for so many years, I can’t imagine parting with it. When I was a child, I devoured every Oz book Frank Baum wrote, all fourteen of them. They do everything a good story is supposed to—and what I’ve aimed to do in my memoir about Africa. They whisk the reader to another world.
When I'm really absorbed in a story, I get annoyed when someone interrupts me like my dad did one long-ago day. I don't remember what I was reading, but I didn't like being wrenched out of whatever world I was in.
Books like this, Kondo says, are the ones that belong in your Book Hall of Fame. I liked this idea. It helped me clarify what I wanted to keep, so I drove to the liquor store and filled up my car with boxes.
My Hall of Fame ended up holding titles I’ve read more than once and might read again—a few kids’ books, some international thrillers, and a lot of historical fiction. Tolstoy, Faulkner, and Hemingway had to make the trip to Goodwill. Those guys definitely don’t spark my joy. But they taught me something, so as Marie Kondo advises, I thanked them as I let them go.
Altogether, I loaded eighteen boxes of books into the trunk of my car. My house feels lighter, airier, more cheerful. I feel lighter, airier, more cheerful. We all have books we love. Which are books you couldn’t put down? Which ones belong in your Hall of Fame?