The Yurt Game

And the word of the day is:  Yurt.

GurvgerCC BY-SA 3.0

I was chatting to one of my colleagues earlier about being in a "decluttering" phase (yes, I know how futile that is when you happen to be a very cluttered person), and I said I was trying to prioritise what I would want to keep if I had to move into a yurt.

She had never heard of a yurt before, so we spent several minutes looking up pictures of various yurts from the traditional tents of nomadic Asian tribes people to the "glamping" monstrosities of today.

There's a game I've been playing as I've been trying to sort out my bookshelves, and I invite you to play a similar game in your homes:

Say you had to move from your house into a yurt.  You can make up your own reason for why, that's not the important thing.

The important thing is that your yurt doesn't have space for your bookshelves.  You have stubbornly insisted on having at least one book shelf, but that's all you get.  One.  Singular.

If you are anything like me, you probably have several bookcases scattered around your house, each at various levels of fullness.  Imagine you have to reconcile all of those books to just one shelf.

I mean every book - fiction, how-to manuals, cook books, reference books... the lot.  Whatever you can fit on one shelf of one of your current bookcase is what you get to keep.

Now, before you start thinking about your answer to this question, remember that libraries exist.  And you probably have friends with similar reading tastes.  The vast majority of books currently taking up space in your house could probably be borrowed if you really wanted to see them again.

So, what goes on the shelf?

Books that are irreplaceable.  Books where that specific copy has some deep meaning to you.  Books you use all the time or consult frequently.  Books that are so close to your heart that you can't imagine any home of yours not having this book in it...

Tell me about a no-brainer - a book you know would definitely be on that shelf.  You can put it in the comments for this post, or submit it to your social media platform of choice with the tag #yurtbooks.

It will be interesting to see what matters to you.