Sorting books

to part with is not my favourite occupation. I have never liked parting with books. 

The Senior Cat was the same. Last year though he gave me some instructions.  He was not going to use those books again. Other people might.

His "magic" books - the books about conjuring - were to be given to a good friend of his. P.... was a regular visitor to the residence before the Covid restrictions halted his visits. The Senior Cat knows P.... will go on using the books and appreciate them. P... is one of those rare people who makes his living from his art as a conjuror. Even now when he looks so much up on line he turns back again and again to books. I know the books are being used. 

The books about woodwork, toy making, paper architecture and more are also being passed. 

The Senior Cat also had quite a number of gardening books. They reflected his interest in "organic" gardening, composting, growing vegetables and the like. Middle Cat now has a few of those as she is the other serious gardener in the family. The rest have gone to an organisation to which he once belonged.

There are what I suppose might be described as the serious texts. These are in theology, psychology and philosophy. In all cases they are many and varied. 

"Did he actually read all this stuff?" someone asked me recently when I shifted a pile out of the way.

Yes, he did. For as long as I can remember he has been interested in what other people thought and believed and how they came to believe it.  There are very few books he did not actually finish reading. I am shortly going to pass those books on to an unlikely place, a women's theological study centre in a convent. I know they won't keep them all. The Senior Cat knows that too but he also knows that there will be things there that will be of interest to them... and perhaps they may find a use for even more. 

Some months ago the Senior Cat asked me to bring some of his "joke" books in to the residence. He has given them to the two women who run the "lifestyle" program. They are being well used. There is still at least a metre of such books. I will pass those over as well - but not just yet.

There are very few novels. This is not because he did not read novels. He did. He also tended to pass them on to other people when he had finished reading them. We also tended to share. 

The Senior Cat can no longer see well enough to read or indeed to do anything at all.  Yesterday he was lucid enough to ask me if I was dealing with the books as he had requested. I could tell him I was - but it is a bit like giving away a little part of  him each time I pass one on.