As a self-professed book lover and an aspiring minimalist (ish), the time has come to tackle decluttering books. Mostly because our local library is collecting book donations for a book fundraiser. AND it’s just time. For many people, decluttering books may not be a problem area or a hard category of decluttering to tackle. But for this bibliophile and collector of good books, the book clutter has been getting out of control.
Today, I’m taking you along my book decluttering journey and sharing my tips, tricks, and lessons learned after cutting the book clutter. And by books, I mean ALL the books—the new books, beloved fiction, kids’ books, reference books, cookbooks, etc. No book goes unturned except for maybe the copy of Ulysses I found at the dump that I will never read. Let’s be honest.
A cautionary word before we dive in. These tips are all for physical books, not digital books. I’m a rabid consumer of paperbacks and hardcovers and wouldn’t have the faintest idea of what to do with digital books.
Collect All The Books In One Place
This is such a Marie Kondo thing to do and I balked at it in the beginning, but there’s a reason for it. How could I truly assess that I have duplicates of Tara Westover’s Educated when one copy is on the bookshelves downstairs and another is in my to-read pile in the bedroom? True story.
Go room by room and gather every single book you own. Bring them to a designated workplace where you can start to sift through the entirety of your book collection.
I made one exception to this rule. I brought all of the adult books to the keeping room where we have a big set of built-in bookcases. Then, all of the children’s books went to the living room to await their fate since the kids had a big bookcase in there. Photo evidence, the entire collection of kids’ books in one place before decluttering.
Pseudo Sort The Books
The pseudo is important here. I’m not talking about alphabetizing the books by author’s last name after sorting by genre. A looser organizational strategy works just fine.
How you sort your books is dependent on the type of reader you are and what books are in your collection. But I definitely recommend that everyone have one category for unread books. We’ll get there in a minute.
For me, the pseudo-book sorting looked like this:
- Kids books altogether with certain series collected together (like all the Goosebumps and Dr. Seuss books together)
- Unread books
- Design books
- Cookbooks
- Other reference materials or coffee table books
- Fiction and non-fiction books
I briefly thought about leaving all the books on the bookshelves and just sorting through them there BUT the level of dust that had accumulated on some of the shelves convinced me it was a good idea to pull them all and give the bookshelves a deep clean.
Consider Space Constraints
Before really diving into decluttering the giant pile of books, consider the space constraints you have for your collection. Books don’t need to take over your living space, especially when we’re a society of access over ownership with resources like the local library.
But when books are important to you or hold sentimental value, make space for them. Giving your book collection a physical space limitation is one of the most practical tips for cutting the book clutter. Once the space is full, it’s time to start culling.
Limiting how much space you have for books and sticking to it means there may only be room for favorites, making your decluttering process simpler. There’s just no room for maybes.
It also may look like a different amount of space and different locations for types of books. For me, it’s kids’ books on the living room bookshelf, fiction and non-fiction books on the shelves in the keeping room, my to-be-read pile on top of the wardrobe in our bedroom, cookbooks on their own dedicated shelf in the kitchen, and other reference books on the shelves at the top of the stairs.
For example, the kids’ bookshelf after decluttering. I limit the amount of children’s books in our home to what fits on this shelf.
Remove Duplicates
With any decluttering project, I like to start with the low-hanging fruit. Think of the easiest thing possible to declutter and get the ball rolling. There’s no easier place to start than by removing duplicates.
I thought for sure there were no duplicates in my collection. But when you collect a lot of books over a long time, from yard sales, the thrift store, free piles, and hand-me-downs from friends, duplicates are bound to show up.
I found one duplicate. I had somehow amassed two copies of Educated by Tara Westover.
Decide Why You’re Holding Onto Books
This is where we need to get super honest with ourselves. Maybe instead of asking ourselves how much joy this book is sparking (ala the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up), we should ask why we’re holding onto books.
Maybe you’re a reader who loves going back and re-reading classic literary fiction or you have a certain set of holiday comfort reads you revisit. Maybe it’s a treasured book from your childhood you just can’t let go of. Or maybe you want everyone in your house to always have an interesting book to reach for when they need it.
For me, I love to reread a handful of favorite novels, reference non-fiction books when something comes up, and peruse design books when I need inspiration for my own house. I got real with myself and asked why I kept so many more books than I needed on the bookshelves downstairs. Maybe I could downsize and put decor or family photos on the shelves?
But one thing I LOVE to do is pass on books I think friends and family will love. I hold onto my favorites, collected on the shelves until I can connect the right person with the right book. Often it’s Colby, someday it will be our kids. But for the books I don’t plan to reread I don’t hesitate to give them away to different people. Like giving the latest Erik Larsen to my father-in-law to read, the Willie Nelson autobiography to my other father-in-law, or the super interesting herbalist memoire book to a fellow gardening family member.
Set Some Rules For Decision Making
Setting some rules from the very beginning can help make the decision-making process easier. This holds especially true if you’re sorting through a large number of books. It’s much easier to make one decision than to make a decision 200 times over.
For example, a rule I made for tackling my to-be-read pile was that if it’s been in my TBR for more than two years, it’s time to remove the book. There’s a reason it’s getting passed over time and time again and I would rather spend my time reading books I’m truly excited to read and can’t wait to pick up. This rule alone helped me eliminate almost 30 books from my stash.
Books Don’t Define You
This one is hard, but say it with me, books don’t define you! Read what you read and love what you love with all the gusto of an overconfident toddler. Books don’t define who you are.
We’ve all been guilty of it at some point. We hold onto all this classical literature because we want to be the person who is well-read in the classics. I’m looking at you dusty, unread copies of The Iliad and The Odyssey. If you don’t enjoy reading those books, pass them along.
It’s okay to love the books you love. So today, I’m trading in the Irving Welsh Trainspotting book that I just can’t get into to make room for Iron Flame, which I recently tore through!
Create Space For The TBR
Many avid readers have an extensive to-be-read (TBR) pile. Guilty! Instead of putting the TBR books back on the shelf, pull all the books that you haven’t read yet and create a special zone for them (after sorting and culling of course).
It’s much easier to choose your next read if you’re choosing from the stack of 12 books stacked beside your nightstand rather than the hundreds of books on the shelves. It’s hard to sort through that much stuff, albeit books, to find your next read.
And if you’re like me, your TBR pile is more like 50 books and they are piled high on top of your wardrobe. Although, I did pare down to about 20 TBR books in the keep pile which has yielded less stress in the great what should I read next deliberations.
Books With Sentimental Attachment
Some books just carry emotional attachment with them. I’m like that with many of my books. I attach a time and place to where I first met them in my memories. Sometimes, that attachment is more to the feeling of the moment than it is to the book.
For example, I read Circling the Sun by Paula McClain on a lakehouse porch during a weeklong vacation in Maine. It also happened to be when I found out I was pregnant with our eldest daughter. It was a good book, not a great book for me, but I keep holding onto it because of the feeling it evokes. It reminds me of one of the happiest and most relaxed weeks of my life.
If you have the space, keeping books for sentimental reasons is fine. But we can’t keep all sentimental items or they may start to lose what makes them special.
Decide What To Do With Unwanted Books
Before really getting into book decluttering, it doesn’t hurt to determine what you will do with all your unwanted books. Sell them? Donate them? Trash them (shudders…is it just me or does this feel so wrong?!)
It is much easier to have a plan for the books before you box them up and remove them from your home. That way, you can sort them by future destination to make their travel more seamless.
I was grateful I decided before culling a single book that I was going to donate my old books to our local library’s book sale fundraiser. Any they don’t want will go to the local thrift shop. Sometimes, thrift shops have an influx of books and aren’t accepting book donations for a few months. Be sure to check this out before clearing the book clutter.
Ownership vs. Access
Another thought to keep in mind while decluttering is the idea of ownership vs. access. I first heard this concept from Joshua Becker or it may have been The Minimalists Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus. The Minimalists article Shifting from a Culture of Excess to Access is a great read and nails this point.
In this day and age of access to libraries and digital books, we don’t need a collection of paperbacks on the shelves. So why do we have them? With so much instant access to literature at the click of a button, we don’t hold onto a random assortment of books just in case we want to read something someday. We curate that collection to be uniquely us. To be there for us for a comfort read, to help with that project we’re working on, or to share our great book loves with others.
Sort Through Books One Category At A Time
So let’s dive in and REALLY start decluttering those books, one category at a time.
Different categories of books may get handled differently so go by category when working through the book decluttering process. The goal is to get through your entire book collection.
You may come up with a different set of rules for classic fiction books compared to reference books for homesteading.
Declutter Fiction Books
There tends to be a never-ending battle when it comes to decluttering fiction books. With so many amazing new releases to read and old favorites waiting in the wings, many readers find decluttering fiction books is the most daunting category.
Take a deep breath and start sorting through those books one by one. Go through your pre-determined rules since deciding how to decide can be a powerful tool to make the process of decluttering easier.
For me, my fiction book collection was the biggest category and out of control. I’m not a huge re-reader of contemporary fiction except for a few favorites. I immediately pulled my favorites and put them back on the shelf. What was left was a huge pile of TBR books that I had picked up for free that weren’t quite my genre. I’m not a big thriller or mystery reader although I keep telling myself to try. Those books went straight to the donate pile.
Declutter Non-Fiction Books
Next up, let’s declutter some non-fiction books. These are books like memoirs, mindset, self-help, or even decluttering books.
Non-fiction books are often easier to declutter because they boil down to one question. Do you reference or return to the books regularly? If so, they stay. If not, they go. There’s also a thread of relevancy when it comes to non-fiction books. Some books just don’t stand the test of time. I’m talking about you The Dummies Guide to SEO circa 2009.
Non-fiction books were easy for me to declutter. I love returning to memoirs, so most of them returned to the bookshelves. There are also some books I reread yearly, or at least parts of them. Like Simplicity Parenting. It’s always the reminder I need to slow down and simplify not just for me but for my kids’ sake. The rest of the books that didn’t make the cut went into the donation pile.
Declutter Children’s Books
Sometimes, despite your best efforts to involve your children in the decluttering process, they just won’t do it. It’s hard for kids, especially when they’re young. My advice, keep trying to involve them but also declutter their books on your own.
I know what books my children love and reach for over and over again. Those are keepers. Then we have piles of books they’ve gotten for free from various events, many of which were read once and forgotten about. Those get packed up while the well-loved ones stay.
Also, think about the stage of life your kids are in. Are they beyond the learn-to-read stage? Let go of all those beginner reader books. Are they in middle school? Maybe it’s time to pass on the A-B-C board books. But keep one or two in their keepsake box. You know, the ones you’ve all memorized from reading so much.
Declutter Cookbooks
Oh, cookbooks you freakishly overwhelming beast of a category. Cookbooks can be tricky to declutter. Sometimes, it’s easy to declutter cookbooks. Like all those paleo and low-carb cookbooks you collected during that phase of your life can be passed on. Guilty! I’ve personally had enough of arrowroot powder.
But then there are the others that you have five or six must-cook recipes in them but others you want to try. And then there are the ones you still have yet to cook anything from but you flip through often for inspiration.
Here’s what I’m doing to downsize my cookbook collection and it’s working well.
First, I removed all the cookbooks from the shelf and laid them out on the kitchen island. I quickly packed up the ones that I just didn’t love to donate and put the ones I use regularly back on the shelf.
With the remaining cookbooks, if I just had a few recipes that I cooked over and over again, but no interest in the other recipes in the book, I wrote the well-loved recipes onto a card and placed them in my family recipes binder. Then I felt the freedom to donate the cookbook.
There were a handful of cookbooks that I hadn’t made tried any recipes from. They were all just a little out of my wheelhouse, like King Arthur’s bread-baking book. I decided to keep them but put them with my TBR books. The common thread was they all had an education and a “reference book” feel to them. If I read that part first, I would feel more comfortable cooking from the book.
Declutter Reference Books
Sometimes I feel reference books fall into two major categories. One, who we are now, and two, who we aspire to be.
When you gather all your reference books and start sifting through them to declutter, keep this in mind. If you have books that support who you are now and you refer to them often enough, keep them. But if you have stacks upon stacks of new books that are for the person you aspire to be, maybe it’s time to let them go OR start making strides to be that person.
I’m guilty of it. I’ve collected quite a few chicken-keeping books over the years as I aspire to be a homesteading-ish, chicken-raising mama. But I’m still scared to death of the chickens. It’s been years of this. We have baby chicks coming this summer that I plan to start handling to work on the bird-fear. If the fear doesn’t go away, the books will.
Declutter Coffee Table Books
When it comes to decluttering coffee table books, you need a different mindset for these. Their purpose isn’t always the same as reference materials. Sometimes it is, but often, coffee table books are beautiful, aesthetics-first books.
I’m a believer that things in our home should be both functional AND beautiful. So as a book lover, I want my coffee table books to be stunning books that fit the room’s style AND be books I reference or flip through relatively often. If a lot of books don’t fit this framework, it’s time for them to go.
Declutter Textbooks
Okay, I feel like textbooks are easy-ish. Here are the rules I swear by.
Rule number one, if the textbook is super old and dated, it goes in the trash. No one wants it and thrift stores won’t accept them.
Rule number two, if it’s a recently used textbook you don’t reference anymore, sell it back to the bookstore, even if it’s for a pittance, or sell it online.
Rule number three, if after careful scrutinization and self-assessment, you find the textbook useful and reach for it regularly, make a home for it and keep it.
Put Your Lot Of Books Back
Now with the books categorized and decluttered, it’s time to put them back. I always like to start by putting my favorites back first just in case there isn’t room for all of them.
Sometimes, deciding which books are going to the donate pile is hard. An easier solution may be starting with your favorite books. Your ride or dies. The books you want to read over and over and over again. Put those books back on the shelf first.
Keep sorting through the piles of books looking for your favorites. Before you know it, you have stacks of so-so books that just aren’t the same caliber as the ones on the shelves. It was easier for me to donate the remainder. For those Konmari Method fans, they just didn’t spark joy for me.
The Book Decluttering Cheat Sheet
Since this post is turning out way longer than expected, I leave you with this, the book decluttering manifesto cheat sheet. The 10 questions to ask yourself when deciding whether or not to let go of a book.
- Will I read this book? Or re-read this book? Be honest!
- Is this book a duplicate?
- Do I have room to store this book?
- Is this book still relevant?
- Will anyone in this house read this book?
- What role does this book play in your life?
- Would you buy the book if you saw it in a shop?
- Have I outgrown this book?
- Is this book truly me? Or an aspirational me?
- Do I LOVE it?
And with that, I wish you luck in your book decluttering process. Now, onto the local library I go to see which of my decluttered books they’ll accept.
