Marie Kondo's worst nightmare

I read Marie Kondo's book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing last year. I wasn't looking for an organization book when I got it, but I came across it when browsing Libby's available audiobooks. Marie Kondo's de-cluttering philosophies were not new to me - I had watched a few episodes of her TV show many years ago - so the concept of only keeping items that bring you joy was already in my mind. However, while listening to this book, I looked around my house and realized I have too many books. 

In the past 2 years or so, I started a trend in my life. Whenever I go to a thrift shop, I look for food-related books. Cookbooks, memoirs, novels, even some weird ones, as long as it's related to cooking or food in general. I didn't think much of it at first, but then the number of books in my shelves continued to grow, and when I was listening to Kondo's book she mentions some of her client's collections of paperbacks and my mind immediately thought "am I one of them?".  

I don't have a hard time decluttering, in fact, my husband struggles because of how much I tend to declutter. But the books were not part of it. While listening to Marie Kondo, I went through them and donated a few, but my priority was the other paperbacks I had, not the food-related ones. Slowly I realized I'd never get to reading the books on my shelves. I took books to donation centers, to the little library around the corner and gave some to friends. What happened since? I bought more, found interesting ones at the little library, was gifted some too. Oh well. 

In 2026, I decided to go through every one of them. First, in January, I made a "to-read" stack in my bedroom. Recently, my husband was looking for his next read and asked me to find him a good one from our shelves. Shockingly, while going through all his options, I realized more than 60% of what we have at home was not even interesting. I was searching for something to take him out of a reading slump, and there were no 'good-enough' options, even with the insane number of copies we own. 

At the same time, I realized it is May and I didn't touch the stack I selected in January. Not even one book. I blame the library and my kindle (not in a bad way!). So, right now I am finishing a library book on my kindle, and the goal is to start on the paperbacks. And as I read them, I will only keep copies of what sparks joy for me, and I will be gifting copies to my friends and to little libraries around the area I live. 

I also ended up going through some of the food & cooking books, and I am happy to say I got rid of a couple of them, at the very least. Marie Kondo would be a little bit proud - or a little bit annoyed. There's no way I will stop looking for cool books at thrift stores, but hopefully I can re-home some of my current collection.