I believe I said it in passing recently, but I decided last week that from now until the early springtime, I aim to reduce my overall book collection by a net 300-400 books, or by 15-20%. So I'm going to feature pictures of the books that will be disposed of shortly after the photos are taken, in order for people to get a clearer idea of the sorts of books being culled.
This first set of photos will feature ARCs for which I no longer have any use. Although most of the other culls to be will feature street-release copies that I will trade in, these are not going to be sold or traded.
Later today, each and every one of these books will be placed in a large box and dropped off at the local Goodwill, in hopes that someone visiting might take an interest in these books. If they do not, I'll probably just deposit them in the free books bin at McKay's when I go there either tomorrow or next Saturday.
Hopefully, some good will come of it. Later, there will be much more painful decisions to be made regarding books to trade in, but for now, this is just a clearing of dead space, since I've either already read these books, received a finished copy that I've read, or I have no interest in ever reading them. Perhaps another shall and that it won't cost them a dime (or maybe just a few dimes) to read.
Posts
12 comments:
so larry, if you did read some of them, why havent we seen any reviews of them?
is this even a sci-fi/fantasy blog anymore? even pat's blog still has a keen focus on that along with extra things to keep it diversified. half the time you seem to be reviewing classics or imports which is fine, but could you at least keep us updated on some of the new stuff. even the good ole 'blog of the fallen' has been noticably dropped. simply put: where are you going with this, larry?
Based on the lists of incoming and outgoing books, I agree that your interests might be getting a little less genre-y. Unlike the previous commenter, though, I welcome it, both because it fits with my own tastes, and because (more importantly) you have to write about whatever you want, no matter in what direction your interests grow.
Anon,
You seem to have failed to read this little line which appears below the blog title:
Eclectic and striving never to follow paths into ruts, the OF Blog focuses on essays, reviews, interviews, and other odds and ends that might be of interest to fans of both literary and speculative fiction.
It hasn't been a strict SF/F blog for at least two years now. I have little interest in covering new SF/F anymore and I've said as much in passing both here and elsewhere over the past several months. As for not reviewing some of the books that I did read, sometimes I just don't feel like saying anything more than "this book was meh," which I usually do with my monthly summaries of books read. Come and think of it, I need to post the November list later.
Jason,
Yes, my interests have seemed to switched back to something closer to what they were in my adolescence and early twenties: I grew up reading non-fictions and non-genre fiction and sometimes, I just want a lot more of that and a lot less SF/F.
Seems to be a lot of books by PYR publishing (am I reading that right?). What's the deal, don't they know which manuscripts to accept?
That's just an accident of this particular set of photos. I have received dozens of ARCs from them over the past year, followed by street releases of each and every one of them. The other publishing companies are not as generous with printing ARC editions and sending them to me. I have several of the Pyr finished editions still with me and they have put out several volumes that I've enjoyed. But when I have duplicate ARC and street release versions, something has to give, right? :P
You could also offer to sell the ones you can get rid of to us for a good price. I'd buy some of those books for sure...
I could, but I don't want to make money off of selling the ARC editions. I trade in the others these days in part to get enough store credit to purchase class sets of certain YAish books for me to use in the classroom over the next few months.
By "trade in" I assume you mean you get something in return, yes? If so, then you're selling the ARCs. The difference is that you're being paid in something other than cash.
But so be it :P
No, I'm referring to the regular editions. The ARCs I gave to Goodwill for nothing.
Ooooh. Well, I was confused.
I think if I were in your position I'd be divesting myself of them in a hurry. It looks like a lot of dreck with a few good titles.
Perhaps, but later culls will likely contain several books that are quite good.
Post a Comment