1) Last week it was eight to ten boxes of books that left this house when the More Than Words folks came to collect them. This afternoon it was two boxes of CDs and DVDs that I toted over to Boomerangs to donate. Slowly but surely I am purging this house of the dross!
1a) I was especially relieved to get the books out. Reboxing last week I could remember where almost every one of them came from — from Mother, from Gramma’s house, gifts from long-ago friends, the bookstores where I discovered them — and I could have weakened over a few volumes. But they got into those boxes for a reason, and I did not waver. This time.
2) It was fun returning to Edith Wharton for Sunday’s column on cutting, but I don’t feel like bringing her along to the beach this week. I have a two-foot stack of “new” books on the coffee table (where it doubles as a tripod for Facetime calls) — some of which go back a couple years — but none of those titles are calling out to me now. I will probably tote along Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to the Civil War by Joanne Freeman just because I would love to have finished it. (It’s a very good book, but my goodness, the parallels to today . . . )
3) But really, sometimes the best read is a NAP.
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