On The Shelf
October 27, 2008
Whenever I go to people’s houses I’m always drawn to their bookshelves, because it’s an insite into their interests. And the older someone gets the more interesting it is, because then you get to see which books they haven’t thrown away.
Also I’m nosy but don’t like asking questions and seeing what makes people tick. I still don’t know – I’ve never actually seen a person tick. I’ve seen people leech. I’ve seen them fly and slug, I’ve seen them bug in general, but not tick, no.
So it occurred to me that as a reader of here you have the misfortune of like-mindedness so here you go, my bookshelf in all its glory. This is only one bookshelf. The travel ones and the larger picture books and reference things are on another but apart from that it’s all as it is, minus the family pics and such. Looking at this it makes me wonder if I should have kept the books than I’ve given away, but that’s not really practical.
Ask questions if you want – you have to click the picture for the full version, which may take a while to download, but then it wouldn’t be fun if you couldn’t browse.
This is also one of those meme things, so you are tagged.
20 comments
I am so doing this.
There’s almost no content overlap between your bookshelf and ours: Margrave Of The Marshes, Zen & The Art… and that’s it, I think.
We generally try not to hang on to fiction; it’s clutter that we’ll never re-read, so it gets passed on to friends or charity shops. We’ll keep hardbacks, art books, reference books, coffee table books.
Some of those belong to Mrs. This, I should say, but very few. Phillipa Gregory, for example. But mine should be pretty obvious.
I was going to say that you have some alarming pastels on there…
Yeah. Also – I am colourblind, and this morning did not know I was bleeding or not. Turns out it was dried coffee on finger – which is the SAME COLOUR – but I could only identify the substance by smell.
Interesting. Both the books and the color-blindness thingy. I see you have the zen books present. I would probably get those if I didn’t find being zen so difficult…
And bibles are bottom left with comedy roughly at the top. This was unconciously arranged, but now it seems there’s something in it.
You can read too much into this of course. What could you make of someone into Machiavelli and vegetable growing? Way too much.
Good beginner’s books (and therefore best overall) on Zen are Peace Is Every Step and Zen Mind, Beginner’s mind. But Zen gets overexplained so it gets confusing in long books. John Snelling’s book is about the best I’ve got.
Perhaps I can interest you in some of our literature.
HAHA
I was pleased to see that we overlap quite a lot. We even have a little corner of Buddhist philosophy from my mother’s Nicheren Shoshu days. I don’t have The Fragrant Pharmacy but I totally used to order it in when I was in charge of WH Smith’s Alternative Health section.
That’s IT?
Oh god, I’ve got more than that on my shelves here and I’ve only been here 8 weeks (and we were terribly terribly practical and only allowed ourselves 12 or so each to bring with us, the rest are in storage)
I blame my mother.
I must be doing things wrong, if this is your entire library. I have one 12-foot-square room whose walls are covered from floor to about chest-high with books, placed in shelves in double and even triple rows. The bedroom has a huge bookcase similarly loaded, plus there’s the huge stack of books on the nightstand and the technical bookshelf in the office. No idea on the total count. I don’t think I want to know.
I realize that books take up space and space is a serious premium for you in the UK. It’s just very tough for me to give up a book.
That, as they say in your books, is IT. I read a fair bit but I became ruthless one day a couple of years ago and have given away books to charity shops ever since.
There are some here I haven’t been able to part with, and others I just haven’t gotten around to throwing away yet.
Really? That’s it? I admire you. I am trying to cull my books at the moment as all of my shelves are double-stacked and there’s about 2000 of them (or something) in one room. I’ve managed to cull everything else but I really struggle to ditch books.
I loooove looking at people’s bookshelves!
Personally, my book philosophy is I only buy it if I’m going to read it at least twice. Most of my collection is 19th century British literature, with some good nonfiction to round it out. The spines of most of mine are hard to read, though, because I love paperback editions; 1) They are very cheap, and 2) Are much easier to read (that is, hold for a long period of time). Read $4.50 Signet Classic paperbacks two or three times and the spines are pretty much white.
I think there’s a website where people post photos of their bookshelves but I can’t find it at the moment…
John Snelling it is!
I’ve been peering and peering, but I just can’t work out whether it’s stained pine or covered MDF.
How dare you, MDF. That is stained pine with British cardboard laminate backing.
This all came about because you found a Jeremy Clarkson compilation on my book shelf last week, isn’t it?
I told you. It was a Christmas present from my mother.
Maybe. Very well thumbed, as well.
The book, I mean. Jesus.
I’ve just recently figured out how to turn my cl9oset door in the spare room into more bookshelf space. And if I replace the bookcases with bookshelves attached to the walls, I can go up to 12 feet high. That will be enough shelf space for a few more years.
Leave a comment. Play nice. I will turn this blog around.