Every so often — not as I should — I go through my supply cabinet. It’s a clear plastic thing on wheels, with shallow drawers; think desk drawers. It holds OTC medical stuff, prescription medical stuff, printing paper, stickers, bills, Important Paperwork, free samples, rubber stamps. I pick out what I want to keep, and what I don’t need anymore.

I started this process last week. And this time, I’m including going through my books.

I tend to read books like browsing hors d’oeuvres. Read a bit of this one, a bit of that one. Do I want to read the 90s fantasy I started? Nah, I want to read about ancient Greece today. I used to read a book straight through; I haven’t done that in the last couple years. I also used to believe I wanted to keep every book I owned. I wanted to.

But I won’t be able to keep every book I own. I can’t stay in this house, and my finances dictate I won’t be buying a house. I’ll be renting. Likely I won’t have room for all my books.

So this year, it’s spring cleaning for my books, too. Among the ones I know will be donated to the local library are most of my Patricia McKillip hardcovers. Most of my favorites of hers are in paperback. Other hardcovers will have to go as well, simply because hardcovers take up more space than paperbacks.

Then there’s the books I’m not sure I like anymore. I enjoyed Elizabeth Bear’s A Companion to Wolves and its sequels. But the blithe depiction of a female character becoming a man through surgeries and herbs threw me out of the story. I’m keeping the first three The Eternal Sky books.

Some of my other favorite authors are getting culled. Tanith Lee’s YA books are going. Andre Norton’s later co-authored books are going. I haven’t made up my mind about Elizabeth Hand’s Winterlong, Aestival Tide and Icarus Descending. Waking the Moon and Black Light are keepers.

I used to feel .. disloyal is the best word … if I didn’t keep all of an author’s books. As well as a sense that I couldn’t. Some of these books have been part of my life for years, lugged from place to place, replaced when lost or irreparably damaged.

I don’t feel that way anymore. I’m not sure if it’s getting older, increased maturity, or a sense of relief at no longer believing I have to keep things, even if I don’t enjoy them anymore. There will be a little sadness and regret in the process, but afterward, I think there will be satisfaction, too.