Leonard Woolf’s five volume autobiography

I started reading this five volume work several months ago, probably in February or March. I usually have at least two or three books “on the go” at a time, and this has certainly been the case through this pandemic time and other upheavals. So I read the five books that comprise the autobiography sporadically and not necessarily in order. Except I did read the first one first and the last one last.

When I started this journey, I had volumes 1(Sowing), 2 (Growing), and 4 (Downhill All the Way) in my possession. I was also starting on a project I call “death cleaning,” named for the Swedish practice of döstädning, which literally means death (dö) and cleaning (städning.) This is broadly defined as a post-middle age exercise in ridding your life and dwelling place(s) (though singular in my case) of stuff that will be a plague to your children or estate to deal with after your death. A big part of my stuff is books.

There are five ways that I am getting rid of books.

• Giving them to predetermined recipients (a child or grandchild or Twin Cities DSA or another worthy organization building a library)
• Selling them individually online if they are worth the effort
• Selling them en masse to a used book dealer if they are worth a minimal price