I recently spent alot of money on books... (cont.)

The biggest problem was the collection became, within my limited financial means, a library. I acquired authors that meant little to me based on the fact that they were easy to buy, and others spoke highly of them. This, of course, was a mistake. For me it was the accumulation that fueled me not the books themselves. A full bag of books was the satisfaction. Depressingly, the bag would go into the man cave. The books would be shelved and more often than not that was that.

The purge was correcting an activity that should have never happened. I lost focus in my focus. The proof of this is a year later I have had only one instance where I regretted giving the book away (Charlie Houston's The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death).

With world headquarters for The Hungry Detective firmly established in Los Angeles and the books on the shelves, I could see the collection for the first time in a very long time.

--EDIT--
It turns I did not give away Mystic Arts. I discovered the book during a reorganization project a few weeks back. Happy to still have it.

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