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Alberto Manguel, author of The Library at Night<\/em>, among other books, writes lovingly in the New York Times<\/em><\/a> about his current library south of the Loire Valley in France and his other libraries that grew into this one.<\/p>\n But Manguel is a hoarder — a habit I’ve been trying to rid myself of. As books overflow their places throughout the house, I am trying to be freer about sending them on their way to other readers, like a kind of wheel of literary samsara.<\/p>\n Manguel goes so far as to write “I have dozens of very bad books that I don\u2019t throw away in case I ever need an example of a book I think is bad.” He does describe a single prisoner he released: “The only book I ever banished from my library was Bret Easton Ellis\u2019s American Psycho,<\/em> which I felt infected the shelves with its prurient descriptions of deliberately inflicted pain. I put it in the garbage; I didn\u2019t give it to anyone because I wouldn\u2019t give away a book I wasn\u2019t fond of.” He won’t even lend books, writing that “If I want someone to read a book, I\u2019ll buy a copy and offer it as a gift. I believe that to lend a book is an incitement to theft.”<\/p>\n I am devoted to books, but if we keep all the things we love and only give away those that we don’t love I think we are very far from achieving Buddha-nature.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n