{"id":1254,"date":"2010-02-05T12:36:07","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T12:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/?p=1254"},"modified":"2022-08-26T08:33:18","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T08:33:18","slug":"book-disposal-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/2010\/02\/book-disposal-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Book disposal part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This was my core science fiction collection as of\u00a026 June 2006<\/a>. Exercising ruthlessly stringent criteria I had whittled it down to these four simple shelves. Since then various of its components have come and gone but the quantity has remained the same.<\/p>\n

Until last night, when it got whittled down by a further two shelves worth. We are inheriting a big kind of dresser-thingy which will take up most of one wall and comes up to the level of the second shelf: ergo, at least two shelves had to go. I was as ruthless as the first time round, with similar criteria honed after a further 3.5 years of life-changing events: am I really likely to read this again? And could anyone else benefit more from its ownership?<\/p>\n

That second one was actually quite easy to answer, as Senior Godson has turned into quite the SF fan. About one shelf’s worth went to him, the rest to a jumble sale for Haiti. I like to think my selection criteria made sense. Not too light? Not too heavy? Too much sex and violence? Not enough? Is this a classic that a developing young mind should read? And so on. I gave him all the Asimovs but kept all the Clarkes: getting rid of those would be tearing out a piece of my soul.<\/p>\n

But. Two shelves down, about 10 titles in from the right, red text on a yellow spine – that would be my copy of L. Ron Hubbard’s\u00a0Dianetics<\/a>\u00a0(and\u00a0here’s how I came by it<\/a>). Not really the kind of thing a godfather should give his godson, and not really the kind of thing I feel should be unleashed on the unwitting public via a jumble sale, even for a good cause. So I’ve hung on to it. Ironic that Senior Godson’s father works for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: now I begin to understand the dilemmas faced by other purveyors of toxic waste.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was my core science fiction collection as of\u00a026 June 2006. Exercising ruthlessly stringent criteria I had whittled it down to these four simple shelves. Since then various of its components have come and gone but the quantity has remained … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1],"tags":[29,20],"class_list":["post-1254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-bens-life","tag-books-2","tag-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1254"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4042,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254\/revisions\/4042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}