THE KEEPER SHELF

Hoo boy ... it's been a tough day.

I've been going through my bookshelves, trying to make room for recently-read books, and maybe sandwich some of my to-be-read pile up there, too, as it's been towering and tottering for quite a while now. You know what that means?

Yep. Clear out some of the books I've already read.

I'm a pack rat, and things like this just stick in my throat. Especially with books, because as a writer, I'm always thinking, I might want to refer back to that sometime, to see how the author did such-and-such....

Gulp. Time to get real. I'm really only likely to do this with my favorite books, right? That leaves a lot of books that pleased me as I read them, but I'm not likely to hand them off to friends or go back to review the writer's technique. So a lot of the old ones have got to go. And what does that leave?

Here's the pleasant part. It leaves me with a "keeper" shelf of books I can view with real enjoyment, because each glance at a spine leaves me with a moment's memory of the time I spent with those characters. I've made a lot of nice additions in the past year or two -- books that I'm happy to keep around. Some, but not all, are listed as favorites in my Blogger profile.

What does your keeper shelf look like?