"Rightsizing"

To look at the entries here, you'd think it has been a very slow couple of weeks.  If you thought that you would be wrong.  In fact, since coming back to DC from Maine right before New Year's, there's been a great deal of activity.  Besides a very enjoyable New Year's Eve at the Army Navy Country Club and Southeast DC, I've become very busy with two separate major projects at work, enrolled in online graduate courses from Virginia Tech to start my master's (plus all the legwork to get tuition assistance at work), and winterized my "backyard boat" Pegasus.

The most significant thing maybe be one that was less time consuming.  But I've winterized boats and taken courses before.  This is a unique and novel event.  I'm selling off some of my library.  Well, trying - I've picked out the duplicates and candidates for "reduction in force."  They fill a grocery sack and a rolling suitcase.  Some are good titles that I have multiple copies of - The Sea Wolf, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, House of Leaves - while others just haven't aged well for me.  I'm getting rid of all of my old Mass Market Tom Clancys (Clancies?) except for my still-beloved The Hunt for Red October.  Goodbye to all of the "Hannibal" novels by Thomas Harris except, again, the best of them, Silence of the Lambs.

The reasoning for the sale is twofold.  First, and primarily, I need more shelf space, especially in my fiction section.  Second, with the exception of the duplicate copies, I could not see myself ever re-reading any of these titles, or needing to refer to any of the non-fiction volumes.

So I've got them set for their departure.  The only problem is the destination.  Used bookstores, good used bookstores, are a rare thing.  Alexandria only has a few candidates, none of which I've visited.  I've heard good things about Capitol Hill Books, though..  What I wouldn't give to be near The Crow back in Burlington.  Or really, my old used book section at the South Burlington Barnes & Noble.  Then I could sell them to myself for store credit and use my employee discount on new purchases to trade in 10 old books for about 5 new ones.  That's a pretty good swap, unless one of your used books is a Gutenberg Bible.