2 posts tagged “books”
I reorganized my bookshelf today. I've been needing to do it for a while now, so I just up and did it today. Since it's in our dining room and on the way to the kitchen, it seems to be the place that things get thrown on when there is no where else to put them. Here's a list of some strange things I found:
-a check for $64.75 that belongs to my friend Rebecca
-a receipt for a greeting card that I purchased in April of 2005.
-some sandalwood incense
-a Geek Squad badge that says "Chad Kennedy-Special Agent"
-a letter that says I am eligible to receive a coupon book from a class action lawsuit against Ralph's grocery store that I wasn't even aware we were a part of
-a paystub from Macy's in which I made a whopping $284.24.
Reorganizing my bookshelf if kinda like playing Tetris. Each book is important in its own, but each needs to fit on one little shelf and sometimes things are just going to get a little out of whack. (See title-I need another shelf) It may not seem like I own a lot of books, but it is a lot considering that I bought this shelf when I was living with my friend Alyce, (three years ago) and at the time I owned only a few Harry Potter books, some children's books, and a few beat up books that I had gotten as a teenager or during the two months I worked at the book store. (Lolita, Desolation Angels, L'Etranger, and Jane Eyre all came to me in this time period.) It was just enough to fill an entire shelf. Then I got a better job, and decided that instead of robbing Alyce's shelves every single time I wanted something to read, I just went out and bought my own books. It was really all downhill from there. I feel like the guy in High Fidelity when I re-arrange everything. Here's the way I've done it this time, keeping in mind that only a few books are more equal than others.
Top Shelf: Thin classics, Terry Pratchett paperbacks and romance novels stacked sideways. In front of Pratchett, romance-Christopher Moore,Nick Hornby, and Jane Austen.
Second Shelf: Thick classics, Vonnegut, and Camus. Also on this shelf: Dorothy Parker, Chuck Palahniuk, Irvine Welsh.
Third Shelf: Jack Kerouac, Antoine de Saint Exupery, Nabokov, Charlotte Bronte (including Shirley if I ever find it again), Neil Gaiman, large journal Chad gave me.
Fourth Shelf: Harry Potter, Thursday Next series, Gregory Maguire, Douglas Adams.
Fifth Shelf: Art books, science books, assorted paperbacks I didn't really like, and things that are too large to fit anywhere else.
Botton Shelf: Children's books.
That took forever, people. And I still don't have a place for the books that are laying around the house, in my car, or lost in my bedroom. (Sigh.)
*Edit: here's a picture of my beautiful Billy bookcase from Ikea.
This happens every once in a while: I am in the bookstore in the mall on my lunchbreak. I have already read this month's Scientific American and Allure magazines, so I decide to dig through the teeny "Borders Express" store and see if I can find something worthy of reading. I find some book or other that is currently a major motion picture and it turns out I didn't know it was a book, so I buy it before I go see the movie (if I ever get around to actually seeing it) so I can be all esoteric and say things like "You should have read the book" or "I don't think the director really captured fill in the blank here. ", and occasionally, "I can't believe how well X actor played Y part. Here are a few examples: Fight Club, The Motorcycle Diaries, Trainspotting. (Ok, in the case of the last one, I was in high school when the movie came out and had to wait a few years before I was smart enough to be able to decipher it and really appreciate it.) I digress. The point that I am trying to make is that today was not the case. Today I picked up a copy of Children of Men, flipped through it to make sure that it was actually a book before it was a movie (and not the other way around) and bought it just because it had a picture of Clive Owen on the front. I'm only on the third chapter; I'll let you know how it turns out.
