Referring to References or "How to Get Rid of Books"

• In the beginning, I collected anything referring to the Revolution, my family, the French and Indian War ... and now I just don't need them any more. 
• Why donate these to a library in Virginia? I've sent a couple of boxes (and more on the way) to the Danbury Museum, where they can be offered to anyone coming in to research or visit.
• I am glad that they sell used books.  Amazon selling used books gives wonderful opportunities to buy collector's items. (Not so hot for modern authors' incomes, though! It saddens me to see my friends' books offered both new and for a penny.)
• Being me, some things are hard to let go, so I have to read them again, sometimes finding nuggets, sometimes wondering "What in the...?" How can I find James Fenimore Cooper too wordy to read, despite his involved plots and vivid use of words? But I do. And I feel guilty.
• Why "Cooper Guilt" in particular? Because his early book "The Spy" was based on Enoch Crosby, an invisible character in "1777", whose career is used  by young Joe to manipulate his grandfather, the only person in town who knows for which side Crosby spies. (And one of my characters sold  that book in his bookstore in later life!) Oh, well, into the box with Cooper!
• Some things you will never get away from me, number one being "Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution" and its succeeding volume "Reflections of Rebellion," in which Benson Lossing interviewed survivors and often drew portraits of them and their houses. Imagine how I felt to actually see a home used as a setting in "1777."