Karl Whitney: Difficult decisions you have to face when the books pile up

Many books, on reflection, are entertaining but nothing more: You hold them in front of you and read, but once you’re done, you’re done writes Karl Whitney

There’s an existential quality to deciding what to do with your books. You stare at them with a cold eye and ask yourself: ‘Is this what I want to do with my life?’

A few weeks ago, I was moving my possessions to a house a couple of hundred miles from where I used to live. My friends, Eamonn and Neil, flew over to help me. 

We hired a van in south London on a Friday morning and drove across Tower Bridge before skilfully arranging boxes, a bike, and a guitar in the back of the van and heading north through the traffic-clogged suburbs of the city.