Today I began the cull of books (apart from those in my study!) and packed up no less than four book-boxes (or four shelves worth) of books from my living room.

Why did I keep a book on how to make a nuclear reactor all this time?  Nostalgia I guess - at the time I bought these text books they represented a massive investment, eating up a lot of my student grant (remember those?), they continued to form a valuable resource for many years, especially the ones on management and economics! But now they are in a box and will go off to a charity shop who can decide whether to sell them or send them for pulping... my 'you can't just destroy books they are precious' gene is well supressed these days!!

One shelf of novels and one shelf of 'coffee table' books survived the cull.

Once all these have gone, I'll start on the children's books...!

It's all surprisingly cathartic.