In September 2003, I posted pictures of the Noggle library. As some time has elapsed since then and we have found a replacement for Honormoor that allows us to house more books without displacing any cats, let me boast upon the bookshelves we have now.
A long view of the hardbacks I have read. Good readers will spot books recently reviewed (Forever Odd by Dean Koontz and Come To Me In Silence by Rod McKuen). Yes, I have read those books, and they are a large portion of my 1200+ strong library of read volumes.
Note that the first set of shelves are doublestacked with a miscellany of fiction and nonfiction, unsorted and shelved by maximizing the number I can fit onto the shelves.
These shelves contain the recent fiction I’ve read and also represent the only segregation I have going on in my library. The top shelf on the left contains my Ayn Rand books, including early printings of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead (as well as the copy of The Fountainhead I bought when I reread the book in 2005). On the second shelf of that bookshelf, I have all my poetry, from Edna St. Vincent Millay and Wordsworth to my mid-1990s chapbooks from local authors.
The left bookshelf contains my Robert B. Parker collection (first 3 shelves), my books about being a writer (4th shelf), and home improvement (bottom shelf).
These three shelves contain the volumes I have not read yet. Most shelves are doublestacked. You can see in the center bookcase how my collection of Classics Club books has grown (compared to the picture from 2003); I still haven’t read a single volume from the set. I don’t know how many books I have in here, but I hope it’s enough to tip my personal library to 2000. Jeez, I suck.
Here’s a shelf of computer books that I haven’t read, for the most part, but they will be handy reference guides when Windows 95 comes back into fashion. These shelves also contain some writing reference guides and some music reference guides.
To the left, we have many of my paperbacks, some of which I’ve owned for 20 years now and many of which are older than that. I don’t know that I ever went through a stage where I bought a lot of new paperbacks, although I have picked them up from time to time. Now that they’re ten bucks each, forget it.
This concludes my section of the tour.
Some of Heather’s books.
Another bookshelf whose contents belong to Heather.
The bulk of Heather’s hardbacks. I don’t know her system or how she keeps track of what she’s read. I rely on my wrote system of “On the read shelves, I read; on the to-read shelves, I must read,” which has bitten me in the past. Maybe she just remembers.
In our dining room, we have Heather’s cookbooks, textbooks, and volumes of poetry. As you can see, the shelves are no longer full, as Heather is on a spartanization binge. What happened to the woman I married?
An interesting note, the bottom shelf of the bookshelf to the right contains my Time-Life Old West series that I inherited from my aunt. This bookshelf is the only one in the house that contains books that belong to both Heather and I. I’m very obstinate in not conmingling our books.
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Heather has also removed quite a few of her music books from the piano.
The guest room contains some of Heather’s paperbacks and sewing books. The sewing machine is also in the guest room. We keep hoping the guests will make themselves useful, but no. They just come and sponge off of us during the holidays (I am talking to you, Butler!).
Finally, we have the boy’s collection. With this many amassed in only nine months, it’s obvious who will eventually have the biggest library amongst us.
How many bookshelves is that? I’ve lost count.
