[Guitars+gems]

Paring my books down to 30 would be tough. But if I found myself in a position where I could only have 30, I could probably do it as long as I could keep my Kindle books, as someone else said.

We've always bought a lot of books in our family. I used to love shelves crammed full of books but at some point I started to see them as consumers of space and collectors of dust. I noticed that was true about a lot of other things in our home too, and we began a process of curating our belongings for only the best stuff, the things that yes, spark joy. I love physical books, the smell, the feel of the paper, but now I keep only books with pictures, like reference books (lots of jewelry making books) and books where I'm likely to flip pages back and forth; cookbooks, music books, books of poetry. That still amounts to a couple of hundred. Because I locate belongings according to use, the books are all over the house, jewelry books in my workroom, cookbooks in the kitchen, music books near the guitars, etc.

My Kindle however, has many, many books including all my favorite novels. I love having them all at my fingertips. Anytime I get a whim to reread a favorite, I can go right to it, no matter where I am. And who can not love the instant gratification that Kindle makes possible? I would fight before I'd give up that Kindle!

One of the books I read a couple of years ago on my Kindle is Marie Kondo's, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Really, the Netflix program is a disappointment compared to the book, which is much more compelling. One thing she said in her book is that people who are storage experts are really just hoarders. Think about that!