I have piles and piles of strange and wonderful books that my uncle deemed that I should have after he passed away. For a while, I felt it was my family duty to keep the books in my home and allow them to accumulate a significant amount of dust.
Now that Scott and I are getting closer to a point where we can spend significant time and money fixing up this house, I'm in purge mode--if I don't love it, it's getting thrown out.
I sold many of these books on half.com and Amazon last year, but after I became gainfully employed, didn't have time to make daily trips to the post office to ship things. Some of the books were so rare that no one had heard of them, and certainly didn't want to buy them.
I felt guilty that I wasn't keeping the books that he wanted me to have, but after a while I figured that if he wanted me to have them, it's because I would know what to do with them. That doesn't necessarily merit reading them. I know how much he paid for them, and I know how many years it took him to collect them. I also remember how he used to drive down from New York every 2 weeks to cut my grandma's grass (don't ask) and whenever he came, he'd have a crate of books to hoard in the guest room like a squirrel with oh-so-many nuts.
I've decided that any remaining books will get donated to UNC Libraries in his honor. I'm sure many of them don't exist in their collections, and anything else they can sell during their annual sale; at least they'll go to collectors or people who are interested in the subject matter.
I think he'd like to see his books in a research library. He never went to college, but I think he felt like buying all those books made him equal to those who did.
Posted by Tiffany at January 9, 2005 11:04 AMThat's an awesome idea. If you are just letting the books collect dust, might as well let people who actually want them have access to them.
Posted by: Jaded Angel at January 9, 2005 03:25 PMDonating them to an institution of higher learning would probably make your uncle very happy. It sounds like he'd have liked more education himself and knew how to appreciate great, rare books. He probably knew that you'd be the most likely of the family to do the right thing with them. Perhaps he believed you to be a kindred spirit. You could keep a few of the ones with lovely leather or fabric bindings to use as decor (designers love good vintage leather and fabric bound books to add to bookshelves, mantles, etc.) and that way you'd have a little something left of him that served you. My dad had a nice collection of classics from the 30's and 40's that I use as lifts and filler and for color all through my living room. I love them and I've read many of them as well.
Posted by: Momotrips at January 9, 2005 05:26 PMWhat are some of the names of these books? I am always on the look out. Thanks, Quo
Posted by: Quo Poe at January 10, 2005 10:23 AM