Books and Their Homes
Thanks to my e-subscription to Shelf Awareness, I just read a delightful
column called "People of the Bookshelf" in The Global Mail. Written
by one of my favorite authors, Geraldine Brooks, she confessed her secret
dedication to preferentially shelving her own personal collection of books.
Brooks said she arranges her books "as she would guests at a dinner
party," putting together authors that she thinks might be able to strike
up a pleasant conversation. She said she likes to "imagine them, shelved side by side, comparing notes on the mores of
their respective eras."
I just went through a similar dilemma when we added
beautiful new built-in bookshelves in our "book nook" at the top of
the staircase in my home. I had the shelves built for our collection of
children's books. Even though my children are now 17 and 20, I can't bear to
say goodbye to books that have been around since my father was a little boy,
and I was a young girl. There are books given to my children by their late
father and grandparents. These are books I have wonderful memories of reading
to my girls over and over.
Last week, I spent an emotional evening placing these precious
books in the new shelves and I must confess I was a bit obsessive about their
arrangement. I wanted Maurice Sendak next to Charlotte Zolotow. Then I put all
our dog books together; I put Rosemary Wells' McDuff tales next to Alexandra
Day's Carl books. I gathered every book about bunnies (and we had a lot) and
placed them on the same shelf. My collection of fairy books took a place of
honor. And my sister and my beloved Edith, the Lonely Girl, books by DareWright were placed in their own safe top shelf. I found it extremely satisfying to put all these special "friends" together in one place.
Now the rest of the books in the house are not as
organized. My husband and I have bookshelves in several rooms filled to bursting
and stacks of books on our bedside tables overflowing to the floor below. But
if I could just have some more bookshelves built, I could organize the rest of
my books…
So I want some feed back from you, my silent readers. How do you arrange your bookshelves? Email me or post to this blog. XOXO
Delightful share! I favor mostly grouping by associated nonfiction topics regardless of author: presidential biographies by eras/centuries, human spaceflight/exploration, sports, leadership, golf history, et al. I am much more likely to have books organized by author when I have multiple books: Steven Pressfield, Tom Clancy, Carl Sanburg, Gerry Wills, Richard Halliburton. But I don't have a single room large enough to house them so they are in bookshelves in every living space I have, which I find I like -- walk into any room and find books waiting to be perused or chosen.
ReplyDeleteArranging books is such a personal task. I have books placed on various shelves throughout the house. The books I keep on shelves have a real connection to me, or to my children. Each are loved. They are sometimes re-arranged depending on my mood, but they're typically arranged by genre and author, library style. Extra special books are always set apart, but no one knows why but me. It simply pleases me to see them.
ReplyDelete