Protect local news!

Be one of 5,000 supporters to make a monthly gift during our fall member drive and help strengthen our nonprofit newsroom.
Logged in as
Audience-funded nonprofit news
radio tower icon laist logo
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Subscribe
  • Listen Now Playing Listen
AirTalk

To book lovers: In the war against clutter, how do you decide what stays in your library?

A picture taken on September 27, 2018 in Manosque, southern France, during the 20th "Les Correspondances" literary festival shows a bookshelf in a street. (Photo by JOEL SAGET / AFP)        (Photo credit should read JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images)
A picture taken on September 27, 2018 in Manosque, southern France, during the 20th "Les Correspondances" literary festival shows a bookshelf in a street.
(
JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images
)
Listen 17:09
To book lovers: In the war against clutter, how do you decide what stays in your library?

According to Japanese author Marie Kondo, books could be taking up unnecessary space in your house.

That notion was addressed in the first episode Netflix anti-clutter reality series, "Tidying Up With Marie Kondo," where Kondo urges couples to do away with items that don’t “spark joy.” But as reported by the Los Angeles times, literary enthusiasts are pushing back against the idea that books fall into the “get rid of” category.

Case in-point: Irish Canadian author Anakana Schofield recently tweeted, "Do NOT listen to Marie Kondo or Konmari in relation to books. Fill your apartment & world with them. ... Every human needs a v extensive library not clean, boring shelves."

That got us at AirTalk here thinking. What is the criteria for throwing books away? Should books be discarded at all? For listeners who can’t part with their books, what makes you keep them? And if you have to purge your library, how do you decide which literature stays and goes?