Giving away books

is NOT what I want to do. 

Yesterday a friend came and took more of my books so they could be used by other people. Giving them up was hard. I hadn't used them as such but I had read them and I had actually worked hard for some of them. (They were review copies.)

No, I was not happy about giving them away. I would much rather my shelves remained double and even triple stacked. Realistically though I know that it time to part with at least some of those books. I don't know what will happen to them. I am just hoping that most of them will go to good homes where they will be read and perhaps even used. 

These were knitting books. I have collected rather a lot over the years. Most of them were filled with patterns I will never use. I don't use other people's patterns. (I have said elsewhere I am too lazy to do this and it is, up to a point, true.) At least one of them was concerned with something we knitters call "hand painted" yarn and socks. Yes, I knit socks but I wouldn't waste that sort of yarn on something that people don't really see. I put in another book about socks to wear with clogs. Those patterns have fancy designs on the back of the heels. They would be completely impractical with any other sort of footwear. I would never knit a pair. I don't wear clogs and I only know one person now who does wear them on a regular basis. There was the book about "toe  up" socks too. No, I don't knit socks in that direction. I don't like the way you knit the heels.  So they went. 

I gave away books filled with complex patterns which depend on being able to buy substitute yarn because the Rowan company has long since given up providing over one hundred shades of good quality "4ply" yarn. That saddens me. I used a lot of it once. I knitted more sleeveless pullovers and waistcoats in that yarn than I care to think about. My great nieces are still wearing what I made for their mother at the same age.  It was that sort of yarn and the patterns I made up were designed to last.

I gave away books filled with patterns by individual designers. Yes, some of those were review copies and I knew they would date. They varied in quality, even within the books. There were other books of designs "from around the world". I know two of those books never made it into the magazine I was reviewing them for because they had too many errors in them. At the time I thought of all the work which had gone into them and how much of it had been wasted.

There were some "technical" books - the sort intended for people who want to know "a bit" or "not too much" but still feel they need to consult from time to time.  I suppose I have long since moved on from there. It would have been selfish to keep them.

There are still books on the shelves. I know more of them should go. It probably is selfish to keep them too. 

It is just that giving away books is like deserting friends.