I’ve been writing a lot about books over the past couple of weeks, and I’m about to inflict more of the same on you, dear readers. As I mentioned last week, I have decided to pare down my book collection, with a goal of donating or giving away some 500-750 books during 2016.

I also decided to put a little stamp of ownership on the books I’ve decided to keep. I recently ordered a pile of bookplate stickers, pictured above, from a quick-print mail order shop. I’ve wanted to do something like this for some time. While I’m at it, I’m starting to catalog these books into subject matter categories in a simple Word file.

The academic and lifelong learning geek in me likes the idea of having a personal library. Some of these books are relevant to my work, but a solid majority of volumes cover other interests. With non-fiction, history, sports, and politics are among my favorite subject areas. With fiction, I lean toward mysteries, suspense, thrillers, and stories with historical themes.

I keep telling myself that I’ll tackle more of the classics when I have more time, but I may be fooling myself, as I’ve been saying this for decades. While I’m willing to work through some pretty tough stuff for work and specific learning projects, I am not the most tenacious leisure reader! Which means that Shakespeare, Dickens, and Tolstoy, among others, inevitably fall victim to Stephen King or John Grisham. But they, too, will receive their bookplates, as I’m not giving up on them.