Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash
The capsule wardrobe is based on the concept that with clothes, less is more. You pare down to a limited number of versatile separates that you really love and can combine in various ways. Many lifestyle bloggers have written about the merits of streamlining your closet as well as the best strategies for building your wardrobe.
I’ve been flirting with minimalism for a while now (where “flirting” equates to “reading a lot about it and taking minimal action so far”). I do love me some Marie Kondo, Dominique Loreau, and Joshua Fields Millburn. Why the new interest?
Because my dream is to move to Paris when my husband retires — and when we do, there’s no way I want to take all the stuff we’ve accumulated with me.
Photo by Patrice Besse
What I envision is a little two-bedroom apartment like the one above— just enough room for the two of us and the occasional guest — with parquet floors and high ceilings in a Hausmannian building somewhere in one of the single-digit arrondissements. And in my vision, we’ve brought with us to the City of Lights only the things we love.
So why wait? Why not simplify now?
Which brings me to books. A friend once said to me, “Books are the best home decoration,” and I agreed. We own shelves and shelves of books, even though I’ve done periodic purges. The ones we still have are all books we’ve enjoyed, but lately I’ve been looking at them with a more radical eye. Will I ever read these again? And if I wanted to, couldn’t I just check them out from the library or download them on my Kindle?
More and more, I’m thinking of paring down to a capsule library — maybe just our built-in living room shelves filled with the most precious books, ones I absolutely know I’ll enjoy again in the future. So I’ve been contemplating my desert island titles, the ones I’ll absolutely have to take with me on a transatlantic move. Some of them are:
A Soldier of the Great War, by Mark Helprin
The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë
These are books I consider special friends, and there are several more. To be clear, as a writer, I am not saying I’ll never buy books again — although I have gotten pickier about that. I’m just suggesting keeping only the best. Here are some homes for those that don’t make the cut:
Little Free Library — There are at least five of these just on the various neighborhood circuits my dog and I travel every day. Leave a book, take a book! It’s like heaven on the sidewalk.
Salvation Army — You don’t need a link for this option. Drop ’em off at your local branch. Done and dusted.
Bookcrossing.com — Release your books into the wild! I love this idea — a paperback I left on a bench in Santa Monica making it to Sri Lanka or Sebastopol.
I’ll post again when I’ve actually downsized my library. Since we easily have a couple of thousand books around the house, it’ll likely take me a while. But that’s all right; Paris can wait.
What do you think? Could you ever be a book minimalist? If so, what are your desert island titles?