Day 61, 050509 (Books)

Over the weekend my delightful lady wife had a bit of a clearout of books, and after being reminded that it was also something I should do from time to time, I managed to make a slight start on task #60, give 50 books to charity shops. This is over and above stuff that I give to bookcrossing, so it's the sort of thing that requires careful thought.

In the end, after a quick glance at the bookshelves and then a second, harder glance where I needed to really think about the books I wanted shut of (I never want to get rid of books per se), I came up with eleven. Out of the many thousand books I have at first glance, I was able to find eleven to give to charity. This does not bode well for this task.

The books I packed in the box for giving away were:

• The World According to Clarkson (picked up for pennies, and utter rubbish - if I want to get cross about columnists Lucy Mangan does a far better job)
  
• Hotel Babylon (charity shop in Bracknell when I was bored to tears learning about SANs; ok book, just a rehash of the usual tales you hear about the hotel industry)
  
• T.E.D. Klein's The Ceremonies (dreadful stuff. I have no idea why I kept it for so long, to be honest.)
  
• Sparkle Hayter's Nice Girls Finish Last (I have no idea why I bought this. I remember reading it but not what it was about; did I have a trashy chick-lit phase in my fiction buying? I don't remember such a phase, but that means nothing.)
  
• Don Kingsbury's Geta (bought second hand in Blackpool during my 16th summer, whilst working as a waiter in a hotel. Book was "meh" at best, and nothing like the cover blurb promised.)
  
• The Subtle Knife (replacement from when I had a "I need to read this now" moment and couldn't find my original copy. The original had a nicer cover than this one, so that was that.)
  
• Stephen King's Night Shift (I don't get on with short stories, and these are pretty rubbish. Another Blackpool purchase. I think I spent about 40% of my wages in that bookshop.)
  
• Dean Koontz' Servants of Twilight (Koontz wrote four plots, and used them in many, many books. This was one I could cheerfully get rid of.)
  
• Robin Cook (no, not that one)'s Coma and Fever (I think you need to be of a certain age to appreciate these books, and that age is fourteen.)
  
• K.W. Jeter's Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human (Dear $deity, why did I pick this up?)

So, that's that. I cleared out 11 books, put them in the box and we headed off to Oxfam Books in Headingley. You now get a card and ID number when donating stuff to Oxfam, because they've worked out a scheme of collecting Gift Aid on the stuff you donate. No, I don't understand it either - they must have a very clever accountant thinking up this stuff. We then promptly replaced the donated books with more books. I ended up coming away with three Asterix books I didn't have, vol 1 of Phil Foglio's Girl Genius, a book about evolution, Amarillo Slim's autobiog (which I'm thoroughly enjoying) and a book about the hidden waterways of London. S came away with a lot more.

So, I gave away 11 books and came back with 7, which isn't bad.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (60/365), #13, #26, #37 (2/<34), #60 (11/50), #68, #66 (19/250), #85 (2/4), #87, #88
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 6
Remaining: 95