Book Unhaul

It's been a long time since I last posted an essay on my blog (I have published mostly poetry over the past couple of months), so for today's story I would like to talk about books. Specifically, a book unhaul. Or rather, the book unhaul that I did, because I only did one so far. 

I had a phase a while ago when I enjoyed watching videos about books on Youtube (or Booktube, how they so lovingly call it). I had developed a weird curiosity to see and admire other people's book shelves, what kind of books they read, what kind of books they add to their home libraries, what kind of books they unhaul. And I have to say, I was really drawn to the book unhaul videos, I watched lots of them, because it was interesting to me to know why people let go of books. And, as I discovered after watching a few dozens of such videos, the biggest reason why Booktubers do book unhauls is to make room for other books, new releases, on their bookshelves. In a way, it felt like being a frequent Zara shopper. 

So I did a book unhaul myself to see what's the deal with this concept of the book unhaul, how it feels to do one, and I would like to share the experience of my first book unhaul with you today. Originally, these books had been purchased at various Canadian bookstores, among them independent bookstores, or discount stores, or thrift stores. 

I used to own a cottage in the Canadian Cottage Country which I sold recently. At the time of closing and on my last visit to the cottage to pick up my last personal items from there, I decided to leave a little surprise for the new owners of the cottage. I did a proverbial book unhaul and left a few of my books at the cottage, for the new owners to enjoy. Those were books that I had read in the recent years before selling my cottage, and I figured that I wouldn't read these books again anytime soon. So here it is, my first (and the only one so far) book unhaul, books that now belong to another family, in another home library. I also should mention that most of these books are part of that passing on to the new owners of my old cottage, but a few of them were gifted to some of my friends as well. 

So without further ado, let me share my book unhaul, and I will say a few words about each of these books, as we go along.

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Harry and Meghan. The Royal Wedding Album by Angela Peel. The title is pretty self-explanatory, it's the wedding album of the royal couple Harry and Meghan, from their wedding in May 2018. Gorgeous photographs from their wedding. I bought this book at a discount store in 2019, and read it the same year.

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Diana versus Charles. Royal Blood Feud by James Whitaker, a British journalist and writer who writes about the British monarchy. This book is an account of Charles and Diana's difficult marriage. I bought this book in a thrift store in 2015, and read it in 2020 during the global pandemic, when I picked up my reading, like so many other people, during the lockdowns.

Photo credit: Victoria West

Diana. A Celebration, written by late Princess Diana's brother, Charles Spencer. I bought this book in a thrift store in 2016, read it in 2020 during the pandemic.

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Invitation to a Royal Wedding by Trevor Hall (a British author who writes about the British royal family). This is a wedding album of Prince Andrew's and Sarah Ferguson's wedding from 1986. I bought this book in a thrift store in 2016, read it in 2020 during the pandemic.

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Kate. The Future Queen by Katie Nicholl (a British journalist), a biography of Princess of Wales. The book discusses Kate's childhood, her school and university years, how she met William, their relationship, the royal wedding from 2011, the birth of their first child Prince George in 2013 (the book was published in 2013). I bought this book at a discount store sometime in 2019, and read in the summer of 2020 while on vacation at my cottage. That summer, the only place were I could go on vacation was my cottage, because travel was restricted due to the pandemic. And I read a lot of books that summer at the cottage and throughout the entire year, some of them being featured here today.

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83 Minutes. The Doctor, the Damage, and the Shocking Death of Michael Jackson by Matt Richards and Mark Langthorne. The title of the book is self-explanatory, it's an account of the tragic circumstances of Michael Jackson's death in 2009. The popstar's doctor Conrad Murray was held responsible for the faulty medical treatment of the singer which led to his death. 83 minutes refer to the time lapse since the doctor Conrad Murray found the singer breathless in his bedroom till the patient was brought to the hospital in an (unsuccessful) attempt to revive him. I bought this book at a discount store sometime in 2019, and read it in 2020 during my summer vacation at the cottage.

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Birthday Girl. Spunk and Sass for Your Special Day, a gift book from Hallmark. A fun book celebrating girlfriends in your life, I read it in 2019.

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The Darwin Award. Survival of the Fittest by Wendy Northcutt. This humour book is absolutely hilarious, made me laugh out loud. I read it in 2019, during my summer vacation at the cottage. The internet access used to be intermitent at my cottage at best, so instead of social media, I was spending my time there reading.

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Canadian Political Babble. A Cynic's Dictionary of Political Jargon by David Olive, another humour book, just as hilarious as the one above, about different misshaps by various Canadian political leaders from today and yesterday, from different political parties and affiliations. I read this book in 2019, during my summer vacation at the cottage.

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A Chicken Soup for the Soul mini-book about cats, Life Lessons from the Cat, edited by Amy Newmark. I bought and read it in 2020. Such mini-books from Chicken Soup for the Soul series usually have 10-11 stories, and are about 100 pages (or less) long. The other 6 mini-books in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series that follow in this story were also edited by Amy Newmark.

Photo credit: Victoria West

Another Chicken Soup for the Soul mini-book, Divine Messengers, this time about miraculous experiences. I bought and read it in 2020.

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And another mini-book from the same series about miracles in our lives, Have a Little Faith. Just like the previous two books, I bought and read it in 2020. 

Then, a few more such mini-books in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, which I bought from a discount store in 2021 and read the same year. Two of these mini-books are dedicated to faith, one to love, and one to thanksgiving and gratitude.

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Photo credit: Victoria West

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And two more books from the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, this time full-size, one dedicated to girlfriends, the other one to sisters. I bought both of them from an independent bookstore sometime in 2015, and read both of them in 2020, during the pandemic, when I was devouring books.

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Loose Girl. A Memoir of Promiscuity by Kerry Cohen. I bought this book from an independent bookstore in 2016, but read it in 2020 during the pandemic. It's a memoir of the author's complicated relationship with men and her desire for male attention, since she was a teenage girl till she married and started a family of her own as an adult woman. It was a good read. I first tried to read this book in 2016, the year when I purchased it, but somehow it didn't get to me. Then I returned to it in 2020, and this time I found it more compelling and I actually read it.

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101 Things You Should Do Before Your Kids Leave Home by David Bordon and Tom Winters. It's a book for parents and children about many different wonderful things they can do together as a family, such as picnics, hiking, road trips, etc. I bought this book from a discount store sometime in 2019, and read it in 2020 during the pandemic.

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A book-album dedicated to Elizabeth Taylor, published by People magazine. This is another book that I read in 2020 during the lockdowns, purchased from a local discount store (must have also been 2019 when I bought it, to my best recollection).

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Hillary. An American Life, published by Time magazine in 2014, a book about Hillary Clinton's political life. Like a few other books in this story, I bought this book from a discount store sometime in 2019 and read it in 2020 during the Covid lockdowns.

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The Gutsy Girl by Kate White, a personal development book for women, but written in a very funny way. I bought this book from a local discount store in 2021, and read it the same year.

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sTORY TELLING by Tory Spelling, an autobiography of the Beverly Hills 90210 actress, which is also the first book that she ever published. I bought this book at a thrift store in 2020, and read it during a summer weekend at my cottage the same year.

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Not Quite the Classics by Colin Mochrie, a Canadian actor. This is a humour book, a collection of short stories. In the summer of 2021 I was spending my summer vacation at the cottage, and I bought this book at a local thrift store in the cottage country, and I read it right then, during that very vacation.

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Prince's Virgin in Venice by Trish Morey is another book (a Harlequin romance novel) that I found in a thrift store in the cottage country during my summer vacation from 2021, on the same shopping trip when I also got the Colin Mochrie book that I was mentioning earlier. I read this romance novel during that same vacation.

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And last but not least, another Harlequin romance novel, Bedded by the Boss by Miranda Lee (an Australian writer). I found this little romance book at a garage sale in my neighborhood in 2016, and it was only in 2021 that I got to actually read it. 

These are all the books that I unhauled. But after this experience, I realized that unhauling books is not really for me. I did not get that relieving feeling that Booktobers boast about after each of their massive unhaul. Letting go of these books felt for me afterwards as letting go of a part of me, and not as discarding something that I no longer needed or appreciated. So most likely, I will not do another book unhaul, but rather keep my personal library the way it is, and let it grow organically. To me, books do not lose their value over time. But maybe that's because my relationship with books is different than what I see among booktobers, and one day I will write another essay about my relationship with books and how I grew up surrounded by books, and I'll go deeper into this topic in that essay. For now, I will leave it here. 

Thank you for reading today's story and I hope you enjoyed it.

Wishing you all a great remainder of the week!