I know this might sound a bit silly, but I already have three cabinets full of mostly military history books, and I’m thinking of clearing out anything that’s rated below 4 stars.
I’m starting to realise that I probably won’t read some of these books, and I want to make space for titles I genuinely love.
What do you think of this approach? Is there a better way to declutter my collection?
Of course, any books I don’t keep will be donated.
by chee006
12 Comments
i personally only have books that are either my top 10-20 with near cover art or are special editions/signed. i think i only have like 30 physical books
>Is there a better way to declutter my collection?
Yes, stop getting new books, read them, and then give them away
Goodreads is not a reliable standard for judging the quality of books.
Gift them to local libraries.
Do you know (personally, or in a “follow their work” kind of way) any people who share your interest? Anyone whose recommendations and taste you trust?
I don’t know about military history but when it comes to fiction there are books that the general audience considers 3 stars that I am glad I read, and books that won awards that I hated.
I’d rather filter based on specific people’s recommendations than on the average star rating.
It might be different for nonfiction, if only people with a certain level of familiarity would pick up the book in the first place.
Imo, absolutely not! Books are highly subjective sources of pleasure and majority tastes are no guarantee of quality or the individual enjoyment to be had. Personally I would at least flick through any book I was thinking of dumping to make sure I was happy to see it go first. Even some of the most beautiful books ever written have fewer than 5 stars.
It’s your shelf, you can do whatever you like. Personally I wouldn’t use goodreads as a metric for my own shelf.
I guess it’s deciding your bookshelf (and future reading?) by vote. If you’re happy with that, go for it!
I think this approach is putting too much trust in strangers and not enough trust in your own personal taste.
If you want to declutter and have a lot of unread books, go sit at the table with all your unread books, look at them one by one, and donate all the ones that *don’t* make you go “woah I can’t wait until I get to read this!”. Those you keep.
After that, don’t buy new books until you’ve read the ones you already have, *except* when you see a book that you want to start reading right away; then you can buy it and read it right away.
For decluttering the books you have read, I’d say keep the books that you may want to re-read, keep the books that you may want to look up something in, and keep the books that you want to display because you liked them so much or because their presence says so much about your interests.
It’ll take a bit more time, but not *that* much more because you don’t have to look all of them up on Goodreads; and you’re making *your* book collection and not a Goodreads-collection.
I was going to advocate against this method based on the title, but honestly, if you only apply this to the military history books in your collection, it’s probably not a bad method.
the rating of a book doesn’t really mean anything, i’ve hated 5 star books and loved 2 star ones
if you don’t have time to read them before downsizing i guess it’s a decent enough filter, you can always buy them again later if they turn out to be worth keeping
My rule for keeping physical books is if I would read them again. Doesn’t mean I will, but I certainly enjoyed it enough that I would.
I lend out books I love to friends and family and I hope my kids pick out books to read when they get older, but the bottom line is that I keep them because I could pick it up and enjoy it again.