Ah, gentle reader. I mentioned the other day that I moved a pair of bookshelves from one of my boys’ bedrooms to the lower level of our house, and it got me to thinking that I have not done a proper Noggle Library update in quite some time. As we’ve moved from Honormoor in Casinoport to our home in Old Trees and then on to Nogglestead, I’ve posted photos so you (and by you, I mean “Me in a couple of years”) can review the evolution. This blog has compilations from Honormoor in 2003; Old Trees in 2007 and in 2008; and right after we moved to Nogglestead in 2010.
What has changed since then? Not a lot if you compare to 2010, but definitely more volume.
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The built-ins upstairs still contains my beautiful wife’s cookbooks and some books of religious significance, but not so many library books these days.
I am not going to delve into the remaining bookshelves in my oldest son’s room as 1) the room is likely a mess and 2) we will soon cull the children’s books out of it as we did with the larger bookshelves in the younger son’s bedroom, so they will be less than they are today soon. |
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One of the bookshelves from upstairs, to the left, now contains the art monographs that had been piled atop the shelves across the room plus photo albums and keepsakes we’ve accumulated over the years. It has an empty shelf for me to put “read” books on. We’re really starting to conmingle shelves now. Almost. After 26+ years of marriage.
The next two shelves are double-stacked with my wife’s fiction collection and children’s books, some from her childhood, some from mine, and many we bought for the boys. Most of the latter went unread in two generations, but I read the Hardy Boys books. The shelf closest to the door has photo albums plus some bound sets of encyclopedias, American Heritage bound sets, and Time-Life’s Old West series which I inherited from my aunt. |
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The far wall of the lower level from my reading chair includes the every-growing stacks of media in the video library (and the cabinets in the foreground show what I mean about the unwatched videos stacked atop cabinets). The single bookshelf on that wall contains an old set of classics from my grandfather which I wrapped in Mylar in 2021, an old set of science encyclopedias whose binding is quite deteriorated, some reference books, and now some overflow books-I’ve-read. The long wall contains the books which I have read, no longer neatly arranged as in 2010, but I do tend to keep the poetry books kind of together and the crime fiction authors like Bobby Crais, Ed McBain, etc., together. And the one set of shelves that is not double-stacked is my extensive Robert B. Parker collection. Which will sometime in the next decade be hidden behind read overflow.
The new bookshelf to the right is where I’ve put all the audiobooks/audio courses that I’ve listened to. They’re not double-stacked yet, and the bottom shelf is empty, but given I’ve given up on the radio in the car again, I’ll be slowly adding items to this section. When reshelving them from atop the other shelves, I discovered several that I have not listened to–including several wrapped which I actually ordered from the Teaching Company new. So I’ve moved those to the boxes in the office so I can listen to them eventually. |
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The far wall of the lower level from my reading chair includes the every-growing stacks of media in the video library (and the cabinets in the foreground show what I mean about the unwatched videos stacked atop cabinets). The single bookshelf on that wall contains an old set of classics from my grandfather which I wrapped in Mylar in 2021, an old set of science encyclopedias whose binding is quite deteriorated, some reference books, and now some overflow books-I’ve-read. The long wall contains the books which I have read, no longer neatly arranged as in 2010, but I do tend to keep the poetry books kind of together and the crime fiction authors like Bobby Crais, Ed McBain, etc., together. And the one set of shelves that is not double-stacked is my extensive Robert B. Parker collection. Which will sometime in the next decade be hidden behind read overflow.
The new bookshelf to the right is where I’ve put all the audiobooks/audio courses that I’ve listened to. They’re not double-stacked yet, and the bottom shelf is empty, but given I’ve given up on the radio in the car again, I’ll be slowly adding items to this section. When reshelving them from atop the other shelves, I discovered several that I have not listened to–including several wrapped which I actually ordered from the Teaching Company new. So I’ve moved those to the boxes in the office so I can listen to them eventually. |
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The wall in the hall between our offices hosts the unread stacks of Nogglestead. Well, my unread stacks. I’m not sure what my wife does with her books. They’re hers. |
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Across the hall, I have another little collection of unread books to get to. |
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My wife moved one of the bookshelves from her office to the wall outside it so she could fit a chair into that space, but she still has three shelves with her books and some videos. I think she mixes books that she has read with books she has not, and somehow remembers what she has read. I suppose that’s easier to do when you’re reading 100+ books a year where much of it is interchangeable garbage. Sorry, pulp or midlist fiction. |
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My long office wall contains shelves with books I have not yet read (including the bookshelves which I mentioned in 2010 were bowing and finally broke in 2014. The fact that you can see the swords on the wall behind them is a good indicator that it’s been a while since I’ve gone crazy at a book sale, since overflow tends to get laid atop the books atop the shelves until I can fit them into the regular shelves, somewhere, somehow. The books to the right are a couple I pulled for the 2026 Winter Reading Challenge but decided against + items I culled from my youngest’s bookshelves before moving the shelves themselves. |
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Against the wall by the door, I have an amalgamation of books. I have two half-shelves of mass market paperbacks I have read, and I have the brown bookshelf I brought in from the garage last year. The top shelf of it is mass market paperbacks that I have read. The second shelf is books I have not read. The bottom shelves are reference material in woodworking, home repair, electronics, and some engineering, I think. The blue binder set at the bottom I inherited from my sainted mother. Remember how they used to sell subscriptions like that? The recipe card subscriptions which came with a free clear filing box (she had that, too, at one point, odd, since she did not really cook) and monthly subscriptions to reference/how to guides for simple household repairs that came with free binders? Not sure if she subscribed for a long time or bought the set at a garage sale, but it’s pretty complete. |
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The office closet contains a couple of bookshelves (depicted) with old tech books, collectible magazines, other magazines, and some binders of written material from high school and college friends.
The boxes stacked in front of the bookshelves contain the audio courses I’ve bought and have yet to listen to (including a couple, as I mentioned, that had been mixed in with the others in the den) as well as books I culled from my mother-in-law’s library when she downsized three years ago. I haven’t had the time nor inclination to stack them in front of my swords or to try to fit them into the regular to-read shelves yet. Which means, undoubtedly, that they’re chock full of books that take place in two time periods, the Winter Reading Challenge I’m drawing the biggest blank on. Not depicted:
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So, there you have it. 25.5 bookshelves on the lower level with very minimal organization (how tidy they were in 2010!). Will I read all of these books? Ah, gentle reader, no. But I shall never be at a loss for something to read (although, I admit, sometimes I cannot find something compelling in the moment when I’m looking for a new book).
Will I continue gorging at local book sales? Probably yes. Because I like buying books, I like thinking I’m going to read an interesting book I find in the wild, and, deep down, I feel a bit like a monastery in the middle ages, hanging onto these artifacts in a digital world which will be lost at sometime. However, my collection will probably be parted or turned into cat litter (although the last time I was at the recycling center, it didn’t have the Big Green Bin branding on the paper dumpsters).
