Spring cleaning: Can you narrow your book collection down to 30 titles?
Today is the first day of April, when thoughts turn to spring cleaning. For book lovers, it鈥檚 an especially good time to weed one鈥檚 personal library, clearing the shelves of titles not likely to be read again.
Marie Kondo, the Japanese decluttering expert whose 鈥淭he Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up鈥� is now an international bestseller, tells readers that she now keeps no more than about 30 books in her house at one time.
Thirty? That seems an impossible scale-down for my own library, which numbers a few hundred volumes. But I did wonder, using Kondo鈥檚 suggestion, what 30 books I鈥檇 choose to keep.
At least 15 of the keepers would be books of special interest to me, though not likely to end up on anyone else鈥檚 Greatest Hits list. I鈥檓 talking about stuff like high school yearbooks, an old family Bible, the Ford manual my late father once used to fix his car.
That leaves 15 books kept strictly for literary appeal. What would you keep if given such a choice? Here鈥檚 my list, which surely would differ from yours. It鈥檚 in no particular order of preference.聽
1. Thoreau鈥檚 鈥淲alden.鈥� The classic book about having less and living more. It鈥檚 been a touchstone for me since college, reread a dozen times over the years. And I鈥檇 console myself with the knowledge that Thoreau鈥檚 own personal library couldn鈥檛 have been any bigger than the size that Kondo recommends.
2. 鈥淩obinson Crusoe鈥� by Daniel Defoe. I鈥檝e tried to read it every summer since boyhood and the book, like any great classic, has grown with me, revealing new themes. A 30-volume library is something our dear castaway Crusoe would have killed for.
3. 鈥淎 Mencken Chrestomathy.鈥� Henry Louis Mencken鈥檚 writing, first encountered in high school, gave me my first sense that journalism could be fun. 鈥淐hrestomathy,鈥� by the way, is a fancy word for anthology, and it鈥檚 what Mencken chose as the title for this collection of some of his best work. It was just like him to be such a smarty-pants.
4. "The Common Reader.鈥� Virginia Woolf wrote about literature as if it truly mattered more than anything and 鈥淭he Common Reader鈥� collects her best essays about writers she loved. This book is a continuing education in how to write a sentence.
5. 鈥淐ollected Poems鈥� by Elizabeth Bishop. Bishop鈥檚 sublime verse explores the strange implications of being a human. 鈥淥ne Art,鈥� her poem about the age-old theme of loss and redemption, is enough to keep this book on my must-have list.
6. 鈥淓ssays鈥� by Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne is timeless company in any season. Lewis Thomas, one of the 20th century鈥檚 best essayists, said it was a hopeful sign for humanity that since its first publication in the 16th century, Montaigne鈥檚 work has never gone out of print.
7. 鈥淓ssays of E.B. White.鈥� White鈥檚 the one writer I can always read even when I鈥檓 not feeling well. His sentences are so graceful that the eye never stops when traveling across the page; the music of his prose goes right to the heart.
8. 鈥淥ne Writer鈥檚 Beginnings鈥� by Eudora Welty. Welty could see right through a subject, as this intensely observed memoir of her childhood demonstrates. It grows on me with each reading.
9. 鈥淭o Kill a Mockingbird鈥� by Harper Lee. We all know that Lee鈥檚 novel of a black man wrongly accused of a terrible crime resonates deeply with social relevance. But what critics overlook is how much fun the book can be when it鈥檚 not exploring the dark implications of injustice. Lee perfectly captures how children see and feel.
10. 鈥淗uckleberry Finn鈥� by Mark Twain. Twain wrote as Americans talk, conveying his message so authentically that we assume the main characters in 鈥淗uckleberry Finn鈥� are as real as we are. They are, in fact, even realer than many of the people I know.
11. 鈥淢ornings on Horseback鈥� by David McCullough. McCullough鈥檚 books are an abiding reminder that history can be as compelling as a novel. I鈥檇 choose 鈥淢ornings,鈥� his account of Theodore Roosevelt鈥檚 early youth, as the best of his oeuvre.
12. 鈥淐ollected Works鈥� 聽by William Shakespeare. Any citizen of the human language would have to keep the Bard close at hand. Enough said.
13. 鈥淎ssorted Prose鈥� by John Updike. Updike was curious about everything, as this seminal collection makes clear. His work is a monument to the power of the inquisitive mind.
14. 鈥淭he Norton Anthology of American Literature.鈥� I like all the Norton anthologies, which assemble the best writers in a way that cheerfully reminds me of literature as an act of intellectual community.
15. 鈥淭he Elements of Style鈥� by William Strunk and E.B. White. I have five or six copies of Strunk and White鈥檚 classic manual on writing, spreading them around the house so that I can鈥檛 help bumping into their uncommon good sense. It would be hard to get by with just one copy. This decluttering business is tough.
Danny Heitman, a columnist for The Advocate newspaper in Louisiana, is the author of 鈥淎 Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House.鈥�
