Day 46 - Assorted Books (Throw)

I may have said this before, but it is very difficult for me to throw away a book.  I've been sorting through boxes of books from the shed. Most are going into one of three piles: 

1) Books to keep.  These are mostly books from seminary that may come in handy some day, but also some favorite books that are just hard to find - like my Adrian Plass books.  (I can't believe you've never heard of Adrian Plass!)

2)  Books to give away.  This is the type of book that was a good read, but once you've read it, you've read it.  No reason to hang onto it - but someone else may get some enjoyment or insight from it.  I have a small box that I plan to donate to the church library even.  I don't know if anyone ever uses the church library, but it would be a good place to store some of these books...

3)  And books to sell.  I love going into Half Price Books.  You take a stack of books in and they sort through them and then make an offer.  The down side is that the offer is never even close to what you think the books are worth.  I've now got a big stack of books to go to HPB, but I know they won't be worth much.  On the upside, at least if they do buy them, they buy every book in the box, so I don't have to deal with throwing away a book - which is a terrible thing to do.  It just seems sacrilegious or something.

But sometimes there are good reasons to throw away a book.  Here are some of the titles I tossed today:

*  Raising Kids Who Hunger for God – only because it had several large bugs squished between the pages.

Runner’s World Magazine - OK, it's not a book, but it's written stuff.  Why do we hang on to magazines after we've read them?

Fodor’s Scotland 1991 - now here's a good example of a book that is fine to throw away.  No use to me and no resale value whatsoever.

Frommer’s 2003 Portable Las Vegas for Non-Gamblers - same!  We got this book when Melissa and I got snookered into buying a timeshare because we were offered a free trip to Vegas for listening to the presentation.  I couldn't sleep for days after we signed that paper.  The timeshare is one thing I haven't yet talked to Melissa about as we look to the future.  Not sure if she will want to keep it or not.  I have no idea if we can get any of our money back out of it.  Don't get me wrong - we have certainly gotten some good use out of the deal.  We've been to some great parts of the country and we've had some very memorable times.  But it's a luxury.  The last time we sat through one of the presentations (and we sit through one with every vacation for the freebies ... we know how to say "No" now), the salesman actually tried to convince us that God Himself would want us to move to the next level (at an additional cost of $30,000!) because He knows we need to relax and He wants us to enjoy the beauty of His creation!  The guy was deeply offended when I laughed at him.  Seriously.

The First United Methodist Church in Pensacola … established 1821 - a history of the church I worked for in Pensacola right after Melissa and I got married.  Never read it.  Not much resale value around here.

Fresh Fire (When You are Finally Serious about Power in the End Times) - for a very short time I was into "end times" reading.  I'm pretty sure this author never thought his book would see the year 2011 anyway.

The Satanic Revival  - heard an expert on the occult speak once and for a short time I was also fascinated by the idea that folks would actually choose to worship Satan.  Who does that?  Anyway, this book seems to be a bit on the alarmist side - the back cover states:  “A resurgence of devil worship has exploded in virtually every region of the United States.”  Exploded!  Child sacrifices even...  Probably going on down the block from you...

Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life – a Chuck Swindoll devotional.  Here's one of the few guilt-free justifications for throwing away a book:  it's falling apart.