Friday 17 April 2015

Book Stash


The picture above is of one of my book stashes. It's in a cupboard above my bed and shows only a third of what's in there. I have stashes all over the house and only buy books at the moment if they will be useful to me at work. The rest I borrow from the library or buy at charity shops and return. I have lots of books and tidy them regularly with a view to throwing a few out...I find throwing out very difficult.

It occurred to me that I could simplify this situation by writing a one paragraph summary of the content of each book. 

Fortune Hotel, for example, is a book of urban and edgy short stories about travel. I read it once in a while and an entry in a book of book outlines might read


Short stories about the terrors experienced by unthinking westerners who blunder into the unforgiving worlds that rely on income from tourism.

If I did this for every book I could clear my house of clutter and concentrate on the joy of empty spaces.


Exercise:

Pick ten of your books and summarise them. A couple of paragraphs is more than enough. Use the paragraphs to prompt new ideas for articles, poems or  short stories.