What does your Bookcase/shelf say about you?

[jdiddyesquire]

I have gotten rid of all paperbacks when I moved house a couple of years ago.

Now I have 2 book cases with hardbacks. Half of them should go when I get energy to start selling them on ebay.

Only the best of the best will stay, special editions etc.

Sony Readers replaced the rest. Completely.

eInk rocks!

Preach on!

[palimpsest.]

Mine says that I'm a student (almost all paperback), that I take good care of my books (most of them are near mint and all of my paperbacks are wrapped), that I read mostly speculative fiction and that I read almost exclusively English books(there are only one or two written in Slovenian). Because the shelves the books are on were not really build for keeping books, the books are all stacked in two rows, divided by genre, author, read vs. unread and thickness (the thickest books are on the sturdiest shelf because the other shelves all got bent otherwise).

[Datepalm]

After looking at the dignified collection that Stego posted, I have to be honest: I'm pretty sure that my bookshelves say, I'm cheap and easy and past my prime. And a little sloppy.

Like :thumbsup:

I appreciate the aesthetic merits of the nice, well organized bookshelf, but I couldn't live like that. My books are all over the place, including shelves in the kitchen that also hold finjans and bags of sugar and tins of pickles. Theres a bookshelf out in the building hall. (no one has ever stolen anything from it rather dissapointingly in a way) I've got books on shelves in the wardrobe. Its all a jumble of shiny new hardbacks and ancient second hand paperbacks and collections of marxist texts and textbooks and whatever. Its not particualrly efficiently stacked, never cleaned, and I don't even so much as bother to put series next to eachother. I don't have the whole series for most of them anyway. The largest bookshelf I have has a precarious stack on the top shelf that includes Shakepeare, the Satanic Verses, Hal Duncan's Ink, an old yellow pages for a town I haven't lived in in 5 years, a biography of Mary of Scots some library is never getting back (I suck) and an enormous stuffed frog.

[Starkess]

That I'm a neat freak (I have two bookshelves, one is fiction organized by author's last name, the other is non-fiction organized by title), poor (lots of paperbacks), and now have a Kindle (static).

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

3. Finally, a bit impressed by what appears to be a complete collection of the Wheel of Time in hardback, which must have cost at least $40,000.

Why? I have them all, and even two signed and I only paid the list price (25x12=$300 at most, but I know I didn't pay full price for each)

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

After looking at the dignified collection that Stego posted, I have to be honest: I'm pretty sure that my bookshelves say, I'm cheap and easy and past my prime. And a little sloppy.

Cheap: worn-out paperbacks, re-read and broken-spined. old hardcovers. gift books that are somehow still on the shelves despite the likelihood I'll never read them. shelves that do not match in the same room.

Easy: masses of YA lit and picturebooks. no obvious theme or taste.

Past my prime: 1990's era (and earlier) feminist nonfiction. no musician biographies of anyone who began recording later than the 1970's. college textbooks that reveal my own age.

A little sloppy: some dust on books and pictures. random toys beside books. several stacking directions within shelves and sets of shelves.

Of course, I don't really believe this about myself, though I am willing to accept that I may be cheaper, easier, sloppier, and more past my prime than Stego.

add "too many books to make nice" and you have me

one

two

(these are the decortive ones in my craft room)

three

three-b (the shelves along the basement stairs for the "overflow")

four

5

six

then there are the cookbooks and several boxes of books in the basement

[Gaston de Foix]

I throw away all my fantasy books after I read them once to stop myself re-reading them again and again. What does that say about me?

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

I throw away all my fantasy books after I read them once to stop myself re-reading them again and again. What does that say about me?

very wasteful Why not donate them?

[Gaston de Foix]

very wasteful Why not donate them?

honestly- I am not exactly sure where I would donate them. The last time I took one to my local library, they already had a copy and were just unimpressed with my donation. I buy ebooks now where I can but it was always a bit more convenient to put a read book not worth re-reading in a recycling bin than schlep to a library.

I'm hugely impressed by all the people who have such immaculate collections, but my theory of books is that we are celebrating the intelligence and beauty of the story, and the destroying or defacing the physical form of the books doesn't bother me in the least as long as the text is legible. I've been known to horrify friends by casually ripping out pages from books (I hasten to add, these are books that I own or owned) that I needed for one reason or another.

[jdiddyesquire]

honestly- I am not exactly sure where I would donate them. The last time I took one to my local library, they already had a copy and were just unimpressed with my donation. I buy ebooks now where I can but it was always a bit more convenient to put a read book not worth re-reading in a recycling bin than schlep to a library.

I'm hugely impressed by all the people who have such immaculate collections, but my theory of books is that we are celebrating the intelligence and beauty of the story, and the destroying or defacing the physical form of the books doesn't bother me in the least as long as the text is legible. I've been known to horrify friends by casually ripping out pages from books (I hasten to add, these are books that I own or owned) that I needed for one reason or another.

My wife took my entire collection to a used book store when we had our baby. They said, "we don't accept non-hardcover science fiction and fantasy." I laughed. She gave them to the Salvation Army instead.

Now my eBooks are safe from my marauding wife forever!!!

[Stego]

add "too many books to make nice" and you have me

one

two

(these are the decortive ones in my craft room)

three

three-b (the shelves along the basement stairs for the "overflow")

four

5

six

then there are the cookbooks and several boxes of books in the basement

Good stuff, Lany! Love the Waterhouse.

[Grack21]

My bookshelf says I HATE BOOK CLUB EDITIONS. I also have everything sorted by hardcover, then paperback, because that's how the Borders I grew up with does it.

It would also say I enjoy pulp crap a little too much. :P

[Larry.]

It sounds like your purge is much like my recent one was -- thorough. It was painful, but my back required it previous to moving house. :D

Larry, come to Boskone any year and you're welcome to come over.

If I ever can manage to make it up to Boston for that convention, I'll take you up on your very kind offer. :D

[IraultzaileEzkerreko]

It says that I'm a cheap college student who studies politics, economics, history, and Marxist theory. And that when I find the time to read fiction it is almost exclusively fantasy, alternate history, or historical fiction.

Reasons: Almost all paperback; college textbooks; all the classics are in paperback; way too many obscure history books; tons of Turtledove, Martin, Dick, Flint, Jordan, Stephenson; probably more books with obscure academic titles than is healthy and a lot of books with the words Marx, Marxism, and Socialism in the title.

[Joanna vander Poele]

This is my recently culled library. I donated about 2000 books to the local library and sent some others to friends and folks on here so that my move would be easier. This does not include my non-fiction or my GRRM collections.

Congrats on the culling!! I never knew how hard it was to cut myself away from my books until I started purging my collection (which at around 200-250 books would be super small for the majority of folks here), first around 1/3, then eventually, as I got more detached to those little stacks of kindling ;) literally 95% of it all, everything but a shelf. I just had too many books I knew I would never want or had lost the desire to read, and I figure some poor used book store or charity could use my almost brand new, just-read-once copies of many, many books.

Right now, my poor sad bookshelf says that I am still very much a fantasy reader... and that I have a fondness for bulky hardcovers. Something about the way thick hardcover books line up on the shelf just tickles me aesthetically.

[Lummel]

Some of you might enjoy these pictures of other people's bookshelves. Accompanying article here. In the comments some readers swap details about their ordering systems.

Due to a lack of technology I can offer no pictures of my bookshelves, however they would tell you that I haven't done any dusting in a long time.

[Joanna vander Poele]

Some of you might enjoy these pictures of other people's bookshelves.

You've unleashed a picture-saving beast in me. I hope you know what you just did.

[Lummel]

You've unleashed a picture-saving beast in me. I hope you know what you just did.

I do now.

And I'm proud of it, wander the ways of the internet freely, sink your teeth into those pictures and drag them back to your den to feed on at your leisure!

My favourite was the penguin book shelf, loved the slight dip in the line of the shelves from the weight of the books (or maybe that was just my eyesight).

[Hirgon]

The state of my bookshelf clearly says I'm organized and detail-oriented, but not a neat freak.

If, however, someone happened to look at more than my bookshelf - say, every square foot of space in my room, and in my apartment when I have one - it would become clear to them that I am disorganized and task-oriented to the point where I ignore things like putting books away. The floor combined with the neatness of my bookshelf would make it clear that I eventually get around to organizing things, but only when that's the task at hand; in the meantime, who really cares where the books go, thank you very much?

The books on my bookshelf (including the books on my list to purchase and add to my bookshelf once I have the money and the space, mind you) say I have a wide variety of tastes. The collection includes "classic" authors like Dumas, Dickens, and Hugo; more recent "classics," including many of the Inklings; a variety of fantasy old and new; explorations into foreign titles old and new (Journey to the End of the Night; The Windup Bird Chronicle; a few others); and more that I'm not going to list right now because my stomach just started growling so I'm going to finish this post real quick and then go find food.

Perhaps the most curious thing about the fantasy selection on my bookshelf (to those browsing this forum, anyway) is the absence of a certain well-known series. In between collections of novels and short stories by Neil Gaiman and a series by L. E. Modesitt, Jr sits a gap (imaginary) that may or may not be filled with books by an author you all know well.

[Joanna vander Poele]

I kind of vaguely admire those willing to organise bookshelves by colour, because I'd probably snap and go crazy. I'm gonna assume you need a really good memory to tolerate the total lack of actual organization involved in what is at best a vanity project. Though they do look very cool.