FREE NEWSLETTER
IT WOULD BE GREAT if my wife and I could stay indefinitely in the two-story colonial-style home where we raised our two children.
Right now, in our early 60s, taking care of the place doesn’t seem like a huge burden. The lawn is only a third of an acre and mowing it helps me stay in shape. Before I retired, we updated the kitchen and had a new roof installed. In the near term, we shouldn’t have any major maintenance issues to deal with. Still, I realize that someday—hopefully in the distant future—one or both of us might need to move to a smaller, more manageable living arrangement.
One aspect of downsizing would be particularly painful. In our family, we’re all readers and we’ve accumulated a lot of books. I count 10 bookcases scattered around the house, not including my daughter’s bedroom. She was a voracious reader in childhood and an English major in college. Her room is essentially a repository for hundreds of books, with some space left for a bed and a desk.
Sometimes, I run thought experiments about which books I’d take with me if, in later years, we had to move to a small apartment in a retirement community. It’s a tough exercise. I occasionally reread books and have a number of tomes that I use as reference works. Parting with a significant portion of my library would feel like losing part of my memory and shedding a piece of myself.
I was a reader from a young age, thanks to the encouragement of my parents, and I started taking out books from the local library when I was a wee lad. One quirky thing I’ve done over my adult years has been to collect books that were childhood favorites. I have titles such as The City Under the Back Steps, The Forgotten Door, Strange But True Baseball Stories and Ever Ride a Dinosaur? I’ve reread them all as a grownup. I don’t know if I’ll ever read them again, but having them reconnects me to some of the best days of my childhood. Would they make the cut in the great downsizing?
In my office, I have a bookcase dedicated to my theological library. In addition to various Bible commentaries and reference works, I have books that have significantly influenced my life. Some of the most transformational are Knowing God, Mere Christianity and The Fight. I would want to take many of these books if possible.
How about my financial library? I’ve assembled a set of classic books that includes titles such as The Millionaire Next Door, The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need, The Black Swan and Where Are the Customers’ Yachts? Most of these would probably be left behind. One caveat: In the unlikely event I’m still writing about personal finance at that point, I might want them for reference.
Using Shutterfly, I’ve put together several photobooks devoted to major vacations that my wife Lisa and I have taken. They don’t take up a lot of room and would need to go with me. The 20 or so thick photo albums from my children’s early years are more problematic. A proud dad, I went overboard documenting their lives. Hopefully my kids would take some if there’s no room for all of them in my new abode. I probably should consolidate the best of these albums into a greatest pics volume, but that’s easier said than done.
My classic literature and drama books don’t have to come with me. Most of them could be easily obtained from a library if desired.
I would have to pick and choose from my extensive collection of non-fiction general interest volumes. Would I want to read Freakonomics again in the retirement home? I doubt it, but books like The Forgetting or The Owner’s Manual for the Brain might continue to be of interest.
Among my history books, I’d choose a small number of my favorites that I’d be likely to reread. The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England, The Endurance and A Distant Mirror would be in that select group.
Every year since Lisa and I got married, I’ve composed a Christmas letter sent to friends and family. We’re up to 32 Christmases together. I maintain a festive-looking looseleaf notebook containing all 32 letters in plastic sleeves. This volume serves as a brief family history. It’s definitely coming with me, and I would want to make sure members of my immediate family also had copies.
Another difficult downsizing thought experiment: What to do with all our fine furniture pieces handcrafted by either my father or my father-in-law? Conveniently, there are several bookcases in that set.
Ken Cutler lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and has worked as an electrical engineer in the nuclear power industry for more than 38 years. There, he has become an informal financial advisor for many of his coworkers. Ken is involved in his church, enjoys traveling and hiking with his wife Lisa, is a shortwave radio hobbyist, and has a soft spot for cats and dogs. Follow Ken on X @Nuke_Ken and check out his earlier articles.
Want to receive our weekly newsletter? Sign up now. How about our daily alert about the site's latest posts? Join the list.
I was an English professor for 40 years, my wife for 30 years, so our home and our university offices were filled with thousands of books. Over the years, we tried to keep the collection under control by donating to a local charity book sale. But when we retired from Texas to Chicago in 2017 (2,000 sf house to a 1,200 sf apartment), cutting our library by half or more was one of our biggest downsizing challenges. Here are few things we learned:
1. It’s very expensive to move books. They are heavy, and movers charge by the pound. Mailing them is also costly.
2. Nobody loves your books as much as you do. Not even your heirs. I learned this when I agreed to help the families of two deceased colleagues sell or give away large book collection. No faculty members wanted the books (their offices were already crammed). And used booksellers offered such a pittance that is was not worth the work of packing up the books and transporting them to the sellers.
3. Once the books are out of sight, you may not miss them as much as you think you will. A friend told me this, and he was right. Parting with particular titles pained me at the moment, but once they were out of sight, they were largely out of mind.
4. If you need a book you left behind, get it from your local library. At least in our case, this has been easy. We live 3 blocks from a branch library, and on short notice, we can get any book in the entire Chicago Public Library system delivered there for easy pick up.
5. Once you’re retired and have trimmed your collection, don’t let it re-grow. We still buy books and get them as gifts, but we have a policy: for each new book we acquire, we get rid of an old one (donate it to a local charity that operates a free library)
6. Don’t overdo it. If your books are as precious to you, as ours were to us, don’t leave them behind haphazardly or indiscriminately. Downsize thoughtfully. We installed two large book cases–nearly 70 linear feet of shelf space in our Chicago apartment, so we still have plenty of books–the ones that mean most to us and that we read and consult most often.
Great post and we share some of the same titles as favorites. But Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis ranks up there with the best. An easy read but still a deep, thought provoking discourse on religion by a man who had formerly been agnostic.