As I mentioned in a previous “thought” my youngest daughter started me on a journey of “down-sizing” my library of books. It was fairly large; though not as large as some others of my brothers in the Lord! Someday they are going to have to go down the same road!
When I began to do that I thought a great deal about which books I would keep, and which I would either give away or destroy. There were some that needed to be done away with because I had purchased them in order to explore false teaching, or heretical beliefs. Those were sent to the furnace.
On what basis should a book be kept? Early in the process I decided that I would lean toward those books whose authors had had an impact in my life, and whose books I would return to. This decision also had the effect of pointing me back to some of those authors.
Some of the authors I kept were: C.S. Lewis, Philip Keller, Tozer, Sir Robert Anderson, Martyn Loyd-Jones, David Gooding; to name six. In addition, I kept all my books on Romans and Hebrews.
Several bankers’ boxes of books found their way into other people’s libraries, and some into other assembly libraries where they might be welcomed.
This process has, as I said previously, pushed me to read again some of those old books. This has been good. Lewis’s “Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer” is one that I enjoyed. Lewis’s “Cosmic Trilogy” (Out of the Silent Planet, Voyage to Venus, and That Hideous Strength) took me back to when I first read them. I have read them a good number of times since that first read. I have also been able to find many of his books in “epub” format, so I have enjoyed reading them again on my iPad. Much easier on the eyes than some of the old and yellowed pages with small type!
Reading good books, by good authors, is a valuable thing to do.