19-05-2025
How we downsized with a 9,000-book collection
Downsizing is never easy, but when you own 9,000 books, it is a feat of literary proportions.
Married professors Dan Healey, 68, and Mark Cornwall, 67, swapped their four-bedroom detached 1930s house in Southampton for a smaller four-bedroom new-build in the Cotswolds.
Healey says: 'It has a lot of space but we've downsized in the sense that we don't have a garage or a loft any more, so we needed to get rid of a lot of stuff.'
Getting rid of old furniture that didn't fit into the new house was the simplest part of the move. It was the couple's book collection that presented the biggest problem.
The great book shedding started in 2022 in anticipation of retirement. Cornwall was a professor of modern
