What’s on Your Bookshelf?

October 2, 2008 in Misc. | 4 comments

New York Times recently posted a great thought provoking article, the Well-Stocked Bookshelf. It got me to thinking–what do you do with all your books? Do you find homes for them? Send them to a storage unit? Buy more bookshelves? And, what do you consider essential for your bookshelf?

Personally, I a.) try to find homes for most books or donate to my local library. I don’t own a house where I can have my own biblioteca (yet).

b.) Essentials: Anything Jane Austen, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, GRRM’s a Song of Ice and Fire (currently missing as I hesitantly lent them out), Alamut, The Deed of Paksenarrion, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, The Dragon Star/Dragon Prince series, Neverwhere, The Sandman, the Essential Calvin and Hobbes, and Tintin to name just a few…Wow. These are the books that I have cherished since I can remember..I feel like listing them all at once just make a little bit of my soul leak out..

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  1. Andrew T.’s avatar

    Andrew T.No Gravatar on October 2, 2008 at 8:44 am

    So far my wife and I haven’t found a need to get rid of any books. We have a second bedroom that doubles as my workspace and our library, and even though our collection keeps growing, we’ll probably just replace our little bookshelves with bigger ones. I like to think that I’m saving all these books for retirement. When most people will be bored to tears and not know what to do with themselves, we’ll have piles of books (and video games, mind you) that will keep us entertained until the end of our days.

    As far as essential books? We actually have a small bookshelf downstairs (separate from the library) where we keep the pride of our collection. Included is: Don Quixote, Canterbury Tales, Ada, The Psychology of Sex, vol. 1 & 2, Kafka’s Metamorphosis, GRRM’s Song of Ice and Fire, His Dark Materials, Les Miserables, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Sophocles and Euripides, Complete Works of Jane Austen, Anna Karenina, Watchmen, The Sandman, The Complete Shakespeare, and Understanding Comics. There are lots of others, but you get the idea. =D

  2. Hagelrat’s avatar

    HagelratNo Gravatar on October 2, 2008 at 10:46 am

    i’ve bought more shelves and given boxes and boxes to charity over the last few years to get down to a sensible 600 and something books. ;)
    If you go a few posts back in unbound you can see my shelves, they are double stacked.

  3. Daya’s avatar

    DayaNo Gravatar on October 2, 2008 at 11:14 am

    Hmm I like the idea of a separate bookshelf for the pride of your collection. Unfortunately my mishmash of books is already showcased in the living room, jostling for attention amongst DVDs, Xbox games (and now Wii too!) and other knickknacks.

  4. Mark Chitty’s avatar

    Mark ChittyNo Gravatar on October 14, 2008 at 8:05 am

    I’m a bit of a hoarder when it comes to books. I have my main bookshelf with all my favourites on in the living room, but anything else is currently in a box while I do some work to the house and get a new bookshelf put up for the overflow! I think I may have to start looking at somewhere else to keep them though, I don;t think I could face getting rid of books I’ve enjoyed reading – at least until ebooks are all the rage and I have thousands of them on a handy little device :)