<p>Wow. Thanks, everyone!</p>
<p>I did a google search for moving box calculator, and guess what came up as the number 1 result? This thread! Ha. That was fast.</p>
<p>The moving calculators I saw claimed that 1.5 linear feet of bookshelf space = 1 box, which sounded way too low for me, at least for smaller books. I happened to have an empty 12 X 13 X 18 box left over from a recent delivery, and found that I could fit 3 linear feet of paperback books in it. If somewhere around half my books are paperbacks and half are hardcovers (just a wild guess; I have no idea), then I’d probably need 70-80 boxes that size just for my books. Gulp. I did find a place online (Uline.com) that sells boxes in a wide variety of sizes for less than half of what places like Uhaul and Staples charge, so I’ve already ordered some, and will see how it goes before deciding how many more I need to order.</p>
<p>I do plan to use a mover (I haven’t even thought about which one yet; I figure I’ll ask friends in the NY/NJ area for recommendations), so I’m not too worried about the boxes being too heavy for them. Even I could lift the one I experimentally packed, so I’m sure they’ll have no problem, with their hand trucks and dollies and whatnot. Moving my books myself between NJ and NYC would take way more time than I have (unlike last time, when I was only moving a few miles, and J. was around to help carry things – he was only 10 back then, but was still extremely helpful as a loyal assistant!) And I would never even attempt to move furniture myself, since I’m definitely not the UHaul type – I’m a decent driver, but my reaction when I think of driving with anything attached to my car, let alone driving a rented truck, is that it’s not happening in this lifetime. I even used a mover last time, for what little furniture I took with me.</p>
<p>However, I do intend to do my own packing (so I can mark the boxes of books – and other stuff - by exactly which bookcases or file cabinets or other locations they came from, and because I wouldn’t trust the movers to do it the way I want). </p>
<p>The only things I plan to move myself this time are valuables, and the only books I would include in that category don’t add up to more than 20 or so linear feet. </p>
<p>But that doesn’t mean I have any plans to get rid of any significant portion of the rest of them (many of which have sentimental value, if not actual value), unless I have to. The apartment I applied for is a little smaller than my present one, but I haven’t yet had the opportunity to inspect it since the previous subtenants moved out, or to take precise measurements to figure out how many of my bookcases (and how much of the rest of my furniture) will fit, and where it can go. I’m hoping to be able to do that next weekend – assuming the co-op board hasn’t rejected me by then! – and J. will be home on spring vacation by that time and can accompany me.</p>
<p>It’s hard to explain why I don’t want to cull my books much, although a couple of posters in this thread do seem to understand how much it’s possible to love not simply the reading of books, but the fact of owning them. I was taught as a child that books, almost any books, are close to being sacred objects, and I still feel that way. To me, the question of whether I’m going to read a book again is entirely irrelevant to a decision on whether I’m going to keep it (even apart from the fact that that standard wouldn’t apply to the large numbers of reference books and other non-fiction books that I might want to refer to. Who needs the Internet?) </p>
<p>My books, and some of my other possessions, <em>are</em> me, in a way; they’re a roadmap to who I am for anyone who wants to look; a kind of exogenous skeleton that surrounds me and reflects me. I can’t imagine giving any of that up. What am I supposed to get rid of? My 40 feet of books about Jewish life and history? My art books? My genealogy books and journals? The books I’ve saved from my childhood? My old atlases and almanacs? Old baseball guides and reference books and programs and yearbooks dating back 100 years? 19th century etiquette books? Old yearbooks, and other books, about Yale and Harvard Law School and the U. of Chicago and the high schools my son and I went to? Old paperbacks with lurid cover art from the 40’s and 50’s, including, of course, lesbian pulp fiction? My old marriage manuals, and dating guides for teenagers, and scholarly works (originally sold only to people with medical degrees, of course!) by the likes of Havelock Ellis and Magnus Hirschfeld and Krafft-Ebing? All the cartoon collections that the New Yorker has published since the first one back in the late 1920’s? And so on. How could I give any of that up? I’d no more do that than I’d give up any of my antiquities collection, or my collections of old Japanese prints, and 16th and 17th century maps, and old movie lobby cards, and seashells saved from my childhood, and 19th century stereoscope cards, and 19th and 20th century political buttons and memorabilia, and all sorts of other things. (For anyone who’s planning to burglarize me, keep in mind that anything really valuable I own is in a safe deposit box!) </p>
<p>And even for fiction, even though it isn’t as if I collect first editions or anything like that, there’s still something very satisfying about looking at my bookshelves and seeing all the authors I’ve loved, and all their books (I tend to do that when I like an author – buy and read all their books in quick succession!), even if they’re all just inexpensive paperback editions. And it doesn’t matter to me if it’s Shakespeare, or Mark Twain, or Margaret Atwood, or T.C. Boyle, or people like Ed McBain and Ross MacDonald and Ian Rankin and Ruth Rendell and many others. </p>
<p>Very simply, I love knowing that I have all of my books, almost regardless of what they are – I won’t say that asking me to give up some of them is like asking me to choose between my children (if I had more than one), but it’s in the same universe! Eccentric? I’m sure. But what’s wrong with that?</p>
<p>And J. loves my books and other collections too, and looking through them, and the fact that I have them, and that I’ve kept them, and that they’ll all be his someday! (He likes to refer to it, collectively, as the “L— Museum and Library”!) His decision to major in art history, and his love of history and learning about the past in general, have obviously been influenced by the fact that my former spouse was an art history major and spent a number of years working in museums. But I think I have something to do with it, too. Just as my own love of history, and learning about the past, was influenced by my own parents, and one grandfather’s interest in genealogy, and my grandmother’s taking me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art so many times when I was a child.</p>
<p>And I’m sure that part of the reason that J. loves all my “stuff” is that it represents continuity to him, a reminder that I’m still the same person I always was, despite the major change in my life some years ago.</p>
<p>So, really, getting rid of my books isn’t even remotely analogous to finally disposing of my old clothing, whether to J. or otherwise. My books reflect who I am, in a way that will never change. The old clothing reflects what I used to be, or more accurately what I used to try to be and pretend to be, and I’d rather not be reminded of that any more than is absolutely necessary. </p>
<p>Of course, I’m not saying there aren’t a <em>few</em> books I could get rid of without regret. Maybe 10 feet or so, if I try really hard! </p>
<p>I’m afraid that won’t help much.</p>
<p>I do hope that I’ll be able to throw out a substantial amount of old papers and files. I really don’t think I need to keep bank statements and credit card statements and tax documents and health insurance records and the like from 10 years ago; some from 20 or more years ago. (I had to keep all that when I was going through my divorce, but that’s been over for more than 5 years now, and I can’t think of any reason why I need to save any of that that’s more than a few years old.) So at least I’ll be able to free up some space that way.</p>
<p>Thanks so much again for all the advice, and sorry for the rant about my books!</p>