As far back as I can remember I have loved books.  As a child, if I received a book as a present, I would beg my parents to let me stay home from school so I could read my new book.

In the past five years, I’ve moved house seven times and changed countries twice.  Each time I’ve transported boxes upon boxes of books.  With a house move in prospect again in a few months, I decided this time, I’m moving without my books.

A year ago I stopped buying physical books and restricted my purchases to digital books available on Amazon Kindle.  But still, over the years I accumulated over a hundred physical books and at a glance could see the phases of my life reflected in my book collection. So giving up my physical books was never going to be an easy process.

To make it a little easier to bear, I broke it into three phases over several weeks. Phase one was taking the 60% of my collection that I wasn’t really,really attached to and giving them to charity shops.  Phase two was taking the 30% that I really wished I could keep and giving them to my local library; this way I can visit them if I really want.  Over the next two weeks I will be having a final read of my most treasured books and then phase three will be giving them to my library. Phase three will be difficult but I cling to one little security blanket; all but two of these books are available on Amazon Kindle, so if I really miss them I can always download them and take them with me.  I doubt I will be though, because there are so many new books I want to read.