Decluttering

I'm in decluttering mode - and it's great!

A good part of the townhouse has been decluttered - from the kitchen to the art area and the bedroom and bathroom - but I've left the home office until last because, well, it's normally the hardest one to do.

And in all honesty it really is.

I do find it difficult to get my head around my books and other crap in my home office, mainly because the computer is also here. 

But in the last few weeks, I've done the greatest thing: I've bought two 5kg bags and posted them off to two people across Australia, after advertising on Bookcrossing.com. Any books which were sitting on the floor and unread by me ended up in those bags and were off in the post!

And you know something? 

I felt so much better getting rid of them! 

I've got so much more space now and I don't feel as though my floor is cluttered up with all those books sitting there staring at me and tripping me up. 

At the end of the year, I'll be doing it again - but then, it depends where I'll be living by that time. I might not be where I am right now... so I may have more shelf space and have the others off the floor by that time...

...you never know!

Until my next post, happy reading!

School Reading Lists

I've just found out that some schools in the USA have decided to pull 'To Kill A Mockingbird' by Harper Lee from their set reading list.

This is a disgrace.

Okay, when I tried to read it in high school, I found it wasn't the type of book I wanted to get into - but that's me; as a student. However, the rest of the class were right into it! And when they found out I didn't like it, I was booed and hissed at by them. The teacher had to calm them down and ask me why. I said that I couldn't get past the part where house burned down and Boo had put a blanket around the kids while they watched the flames; and yet they didn't know it was him. I thought that part was really touching, and lovely. After that part, I found the author lost me completely... so I put the book down. 

I also found it incredibly racist and the language was really loose. 

If you consider the other authors I was reading, you'd understand why. At the same time as reading 'To Kill A Mockingbird' I had become a big reader of Stephen King; who is such a tight writer, I found it amazingly difficult to read anything else with looser writing or prose. 

Despite how racist this book is, I don't think it should be taken from the reading lists of the USA, simply because it's written about a time in its history that has and did exist. 
People of colour were judged before they were spoken to. Towns were segregated. A lot of places did not serve African American people - and they were not called by that name either. They were ordered to sit at the back of buses and were not allowed into universities and had to have their own schools as well. This included being excluded from voting for the longest time as well as being slaves to the richer white people.
So, why is it that 'To Kill A Mockingbird' is being excluded from the reading lists of the US schools? It's because it's got offensive language in its pages. 

I've got something to say about this. When those children get out into the world, after being sheltered and protected by the education system and their parents for so long, and they head off to college/university, they will find out in the most difficult way that the world is not kind. The real world is filled with sadness, hatred, racism and bullying of all kinds.

And if we don't teach our children from a young age about all of this through the books written in the 1940's onwards by the brilliant writers of those times, how in the hell are they going to learn about it? Most certainly not from their helicopter parents who aren't going to teach them anything. 

Let your children read the books they're not permitted to read in schools today, people, otherwise your children will grow up not knowing anything useful about the world around them, except SnapChat, Facebook and YouTube.

Until my next post, happy reading ... anything your children want.

Anti-Libraries

I've learned a new word!

Yes... this isn't a bad thing - anti-libraries - it's something that turns out to be quite handy to have more books than you can possibly read in your lifetime.

You see, I have more books than I could possibly read in my lifetime; but I don't worry about reading the, because I find comfort in them. I miss seeing them when I go on holidays and enjoy being around them when I return.

It's not a matter whether I read them or not.

It's a matter of having them around me.

I came across this article on My Reading List on Facebook (yes, I've designed a FB group named after this blog to pull in more readership... didn't work out the way I planned, but anyway, that's not the point of this post), that James Mapes put up and I loved it. 

What a great way to keep us all from wondering if we're keeping too many books in our homes... the answer is no, we're not. It's always nice to be able to walk into our home offices, living rooms or spare bedrooms and peruse the shelves and find at great title to read on any old day or late at night just when it's raining outside or we're snowed in or it's too hot to go out... or when the library is shut. This is why I have a library of my very own filled with every book I'd ever want to read - my own anti-library - just in case I feel like reading an autobiography, or a thriller, or a sweet little romance, a YA, a Paranormal Romance or Time Travelling book filled with short stories... and isn't that the point of having a home library? Until my next post, Happy reading!