Visitors to my house often comment on the number of books I have. Considering that my collection of a thousand or so is considerably smaller than that of others I know, such comments tell me more about my friends and acquaintances than it does about my library. I obviously consort more with people to whom reading is an occasional, or even exotic pastime, than with those for whom books are the breath of life.

I used to place myself in the latter category as over the years I frequented secondhand bookshops and built up a collection of eclectic titles that I promised myself to read one day. These included Teach Yourself Malay (at one point I intended buying copies of every blue and yellow title in the Teach Yourself language series), a collection of Punch cartoons from the turn of the century (a complete set of Punch and Giles* annuals was another objective), and numerous paperbacks that I picked up merely because I liked the covers or was intrigued by the blurb.

And so, as I gradually took over the house that I had once shared with five others, the collection expanded into room after room. Mere bookcases were not enough. I had to build wall-to-wall bookshelves, a process that took months rather than the days I had planned. The result is I currently sit in a small study where 41 shelves, each two to three feet wide are stuffed with paperbacks, hardbacks and magazines such as the New Yorker and the 1980s French Gai Pied. Downstairs, paperbacks line the wall of the dining-room to the right of the fireplace and hardbacks take up half the wall on the left. And I still have books to spare on shelves, bedside tables and even the kitchen cupboard.

As I said, not much compared to the thousands of volumes that serious readers have in their homes, but they were important to me, so important as to be a significant part of my self-identity. Then, at some point last summer, as part of a long-term and largely subconscious review of the priorities in my life, I lost interest. Not in books per se, but in the individual titles that surrounded me. Would I ever get round to reading the 1980s gay fiction in French and German that I had inherited from a publisher in the process of slimming down? Unlikely. Was there any point in keeping novels by ----- -------- or ---- -----, stories which had not moved me when I read them, but whose spines confronted me every day as if they contained words of great import? Not really. And what was the point of those Giles cartoons, which so accurately reflected the concerns of the lower middle class for half a century, but which no longer amused me? None, other than to sit on the floor gathering dust.

Not only were these unread titles taking up valuable space, but they were a future burden. I have lived in this house for almost twenty years but do not expect to be here in ten years’ time. The more books I have, the more it will cost me in time, money and space to transport. Get rid of them, I told myself. Not all of them, but look at every title in turn and ask yourself whether it is something that you really need to keep. And so, with a tremendous sense of liberation, I have begun to divest myself of what were once my most precious belongings.

Not that I have been very successful so far. A few months ago I traipsed round a dozen or so secondhand bookshops in the West End with a few Giles and Punch annuals, only to be told that they were not wanted. These were the books that an unnamed relative had given me year after year, partly as entertainment and partly as an “investment”. Images of a few extra pounds in my pocket, to be saved or spent in the nearest bar, began to dissolve. And so, like the US army finding meeting unexpected resistance, I have begun a different tack. I’m about to put all the books I do not want up for sale on the internet, either through E-Bay or abebooks. Like the Iraqi campaign, it will probably take more time than I expect and the rewards are likely to be slim, but, unlike the Iraqi campaign, I can at least put a time limit on it and know that no-one will be harmed. And if the books don’t sell, well, I’ll hire a car, call round a couple of friends, fill a few boxes and take them (the books that is, not the friends) to a charity shop and come home to a newly liberated stretch of wall and hall carpet.

And the getting old bit? Well, it comes back to what I said about a sense of liberation. Part of progressing through middle age, I find, is being less attached to things. I find it very easy nowadays not to spend money. It is not only books that I don’t buy, but souvenirs on my travels, gadgets for the kitchen or any other part of the house, and unnecessary clothing. (However, restaurants, bars and cinemas still commandeer a substantial portion of my income) In fact, the less clutter there is in my life, the more I enjoy it. But I’m hypocritical enough to admit that I hope there are enough people out there in internet-land who don’t share that philosophy; otherwise I’d have no-one to sell my once-valuable clutter to…

* Apologies to non-Brits for these esoteric references…