I love books. This is why I just binned thousands

Some time earlier this year I got it into my head that my London flat needed a rethink. I called in painters, discussed furniture, and became weirdly invested in scatter cushions. Most of all, with the fervour of a zealot, I turned to the Japanese art of decluttering known as KonMari, where the only objects you keep are the ones that “bring you joy”.

In many ways the process has been joyous. The day I junked my hated printer was almost orgasmic. I hurled it into the recycling skip with cackling relish, along with its absurdly overpriced ink cartridges. For a moment I wondered if I had made a terrible mistake. But it turns out No, you don’t actually need these satanic machines. Get rid.

However, there was one arena that resisted such easy purification: books.

For years my small flat has groaned with shelves that are stacked, stuffed and double-parked. I struggle to part with books I’ve read, I have a naturally strong attachment to books I have written, and I compulsively acquire new books I want to read, some fine day. The Japanese also have a word for this last phenomenon – tsundoku, meaning those towers of unread volumessilently judging you.

Still, if I was to be true to the spirit of KonMari, I knew I had to be as ruthless with my books as I’d been with old coats and ugly crockery. So, in early summer, I began the cull.

It was quite a purge. At the start, I had maybe 1,000 books. Possibly 1,500. I am now down to around 100. My rules were strict. I allowed myself one copy of each of the 14 books I’ve written, plus the rare or beautiful translations. Everything else had to justify its existence.

Some books survived because I adore them in themselves – a few much-loved novels, from the Moomins to Ulysses, a handful of treasured histories such as Jung Chang’s Wild Swans.

Others made it through because they have emotional voltage. For example, I kept my paperback edition of the Withnail and I script, signed by the great Bruce Robinson after I got drunk with him decades ago (he was indulging me and a friend, two eager young fans). I kept my edition of the noble poetry collection The Rattle Bag, signed by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes, because it reminds me of its launch party at The Savoy, where I propositioned Joanna Lumley, was courteously rebuffed, and then copped off with a beautiful TV presenter. I mean, you would keep that book, wouldn’t you?

I also kept a sketchbook that belonged to someone I fiercely loved, now gone. I can’t open it - that would make me cry – but I can’t chuck it either – that would make me cry. So it stays, hidden, like emotional kryptonite, at the back of a wardrobe.

But what to do with the rest of the books?

This is where I encountered a sad aspect of modern life. No one wants books any more, not even free ones. Despite the fact that the UK publishes evermore books each year – we are now up to the third-largest output in the world – readers are vanishing like spring snow in a sorrowful haiku.

Just look at the stats. Adult library use has collapsed by about a third since 2005; children’s reading-for-pleasure has plunged from 58 per cent of kids to 32 per cent in nine years, according to the National Literacy Trust. Meanwhile 40 per cent of UK adults did not read or listen to a single book in the past year, continuing a long-term decline. This is why I couldn’t find any takers for my spare books. Even the charity shops mostly said no, with a sad shake of the head. “We just can’t shift them. No one has room in their homes, I guess.”

What’s more, this is likely to get worse. Some people think we’re drifting into a post-literate age, where the human brain is being rewired for videos rather than Brontës and Austens. AI will only accelerate this, producing 10 million perfectly competent, entirely unwanted novels every three minutes (ok I exaggerate, but only slightly).

Is this, then, the very end of the book? Despite the above, I’m not entirely pessimistic. And once again there is a Japanese word that expresses why. It is wabi-sabi, which means “admiring the beauty of imperfection”. If we can adopt wabi-sabi, and learn to love what is human and flawed, because the human flaws are lovely, then there is still a chance that books will survive. And maybe even thrive.

In the meantime, I have bought three Kindles.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]