Age or the example of my sister leads me to a divesting mindset. It's true that I never know when I'll want a book again: I was pleased to discover that I didn't trun my copies of Ciardi's Dante all those years ago. But now I can't see me really wanting to read Anne of Green Gables ever again; Montgomery cloys whenever I try her. I should drop this in a wee free and let someone else gloat.
Or those 'may want to read this' purchases. Fifteen pages into Soseki's neglected work, The Miner, Jay Rubin's colloquial translation, which makes Soseki sound like Murakami Haruki, begins to pall, as Soseki starts sounding like Soseki again. Go on with it or give it up? I'd rather be reading Dante. Hell, I'd rather be reading Boccaccio. This is because I'm a naive reader, and the Italians wrote to instruct or amuse in an age of WYSIWYG. Dante's version of Hell I know to be more interesting than Soseki's, having better company in it.
