I know a lot of people who say they have a lot of books. HA. They are amateurs. Behold the bookcase:
The cardboard box on the floor (bottom right of the photo) is full of comics. So is the garage. I didn’t photograph the garage because it’s also full of garage crap which no one wants to see – but there’s a lot of books in boxes in there plus my Dad’s typewriter which I’m going to locate and display any day now.
But that’s not all! Here’s a bookcase just for paperbacks in the same room. It’s wedged behind a rocking chair.
And here a cabinet full of gaming books (and games). It’s a wardrobe, basically. It might lead to Narnia. But we’ll never know because we can’t get past all the books. I don’t get to game much these days but sometimes I read the rulebooks just for kicks, because that’s how I roll.
Oh hey, what have we in the drawers of this dresser? Clothes? No, silly! Books! Duh! The cat is not impressed that I still haven’t hung that picture that you can see on the floor, tucked between the dresser and the wall – but I’m way too busy reading to hang it up.
Like any self-respecting reader, I have a few strategically placed piles of books on the floor. These are actually my husband’s. You can tell because they involve botany. He is one of those guys who determines whether or not plants are edible by eating them and waiting to see if death ensues. So far he’s alive so the books must be good ones.
And here’s some more books. Also laundry.
I did not photograph my daughter’s room or the bathroom or the CD cabinet with has two shelves of books or the kitchen but they all contain books. Just trust me. Also I did not dare investigate the iPad, or my email inbox. Once we start adding digital books to the total, the sheer number of words makes me have to go lie down.
My bookcase doesn’t have many gloriously Old Skool romances on it, but the ones it has are doozies. On the right, we have a tasteful, but bland version of the cover of Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale. On the left is the original Fabio version.
Why? Why, God, why? Flowers from the Storm is a romance about a man who suffers a stroke and loses the ability to speak. With the help of a Quaker woman who works at the asylum he’s taken to, he regains his health, most of his verbal abilities, and his standing in the community. It’s a thoughtful, fairly realistic, very emotional, serious book. What about this story screamed “Fabio offers a bouquet to the reader as he strides, pecs shining in the, I don’t know what, moonlight maybe, out of what appears to be the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust?”
Next up we have…oh hey, it’s Laura Kinsale again! Aww, the cover of The Shadow and the Star on the left is so tasteful…sort of dull, considering that the book is about a Victorian English boy who is raised in Hawaii and becomes a ninja. Hawaiian Victorian Ninjas. Yeah, I said it.
Since this book is admittedly full of crazysauce it’s not that weird that it originally had a cover featuring Fabio. However, I’m concerned that in the stepback, he seems to be breaking a woman’s neck under a waterfall. Fabio, it’s bad form to murder the woman you are making out with. According to Laura Kinsale herself:
“I saw a video of the photo shoot for this inside cover. Fabio and female model stood in a plastic kiddie pool while a guy poured water over them. Hilarious”.
Now we back away slowly from Fabio the neck-breaking ninja and check out my Jennifer Crusie books.
I don’t have a new release copy of Trust Me on This, but here’s my vintage copy:
The original covers share a common theme – the woman is Just Not Into Him. The woman on Trust Me on This is trying to decide whether she should say something polite or just reach for her mace, which she keeps in her bra, as one does. The woman on Anything But You cannot believe that she has to sniff this guy’s armpit.
Comments – save me! Let me know your choice:
a) how to manage my book buying addiction
b) where to store more books
c) which covers you prefer.
You’re my only hope!
Judgmental Cat is cracking me up.
Raises hand. I’m Susan and I also have too many books. (First clue is when you have to move them to offsite storage. Sigh.)
I am actually very very jealous of your collection. I just moved from the US to the UK and now only own about 10 dead tree books. Ok, maybe 30. But still-I went from almost a thousand to 30. It hurts my heart a little.
I did find though that sometimes storing books horizontally instead of vertically allowed for more fitting into a bookcase. Just a thought 😉
I’ll admit it… I actually like the Fabio covers better.
I’m not stopping you – it’s a wonderful addiction and you must continue. The sight of all those books makes me want even more than I have. Must hit Half Price this weekend.
Keep going! They are all well loved, so it’s all good.
Wow! I love your space. The books are perfectly displayed, and I’m wishing I was there to browse through your collection. A wonderful blog topic might be SBTB on the hunt for the perfect bookcase for paperbacks. Perhaps stackables? Just an idea! Oh, I love the Fabio covers. Their worth their weight in gold. LOL!
The first copy of Trust Me on This (the purple one) makes me think Babysitter’s club, which is just so wrong on so many levels.
We have 14 bookcases in our house, hardcovers and paperbacks, with the paperbacks shelved in two layers because we have so many. I also have about 600 ebooks, which thankfully take up no space. The last time we moved the movers were upset by the number of books we had – they didn’t estimate enough boxes to pack them all!
@Jan:
That is a great idea! I think it might be like the hunt for the perfect bag- there is no such thing, but you keep looking anyway.
With deeper shelves, you can fit stacks of paperbacks in front of the other books. It doesn’t look neat and browsing is a pain, but, hey, more book storage.
I think the bathroom and the front hall are the only rooms we have with no books. (There really isn’t room, plus shower + paper seems like a bad combo.)
You can build bookshelves between the studs. Works well in hallways where there is usually not enough width to place bookshelves. Install track lighting and you’re set.
You are missing the BEST place to run with shelves: around the perimeter of the room (rooms!) about 12 inches below the ceiling, just above the top of the door frames. An 8 or 10 inch wide shelf doesn’t detract much from the rest of the room and is easily reached by a lightweight 3-step folding ladder. (see Leifheit)
Oh my god, that first copy of Trust Me on This looks JUST like the Babysitters Club books I spent the late 90s/early aughts inhaling!
I find that if (when) I need to stack books two deep, it works best to do piles of horizontal mass market paperbacks behind with vertical trade sized in front. That way you can just tip the bigger books forward to browse. I also stash a lot of books in crates under the bed, although then I can’t see them and glory in the sheer number of words
I have double-shelved my paperbacks by genre. I just don’t have space. I’m also baffled by other people’s houses which seem devoid of books – where do they hide them, and WHY? How can I properly assess them when I can’t see what they read?
That said, my son’s paediatrician asked him gravely at his five-year physical if he liked being read stories, and he told her sorrowfully that there were no books in our house, none at all. I have a doctorate in English literature.
Couple months ago I finished my long time project of reorganizing my paperbacks. They used to be grouped by last name alphabet letter. But they were nearing vertical stacks with three rows, and my bookshelves started to sag. (But I do love vertical stacks, make them easier to move around and you can fit more, plus read titles better).
Anyway I finally pulled all the books off, sorted them by subject: Historical, contemporary, medieval, paranormal, suspense and western. And I figured since I was doing this, might as well try to keep track of what I have, so I found an app. Free and pretty simple, called “Book Catalogue” which pulls the info from several different sites (Amazon, GoodReads), and can included different things. Since I love reading related character series so much, this really helped me keep track of which ones in the series I have and what order to read them in. I absolutely love this app, and really easy to use, you just scan the ISBN barcode, only had to manually enter about ten books. Also you can make your own “bookshelves” in the app, and view them like that, so I made lists based on subject. So when I’m in the mood for a suspense, I can just scroll through all those I categorized as suspense.
And since we’re all like-minded here, my total physical paperback/hardback romance collection, without my e-books, came out to be about 1,700, and I only found 3 repeats. 😀 (and this does not include YA, fantasy, etc)
…have I happened to mention I’m a librarian. ;D
I knew I was out of control when I took an entire room, had a carpenter build bookshelves all the way to the 10 foot ceiling covering all walls, and I still did not have enough room for my books even after culling out hundreds, if not thousands. There are bookselves all over the place, including halls. I prefer to read paper books but now I am borrowing books to read from the library and then buying the books I particularly liked in ebook form. I still go crazy (probably an all-too-accurate adjective) at UBS, and unfortunately I found a spectacular one in Connecticut (consisting of many buildings).
I want to come over and book rob you. Be warned. 🙂 Also, as a fellow addict, I recommend these Ikea bookshelves (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/series/09064/). You can easily fit two rows of books per shelf and they can act as room dividers. If you do that, each row of books can sit spine out so you’re not burying books behind others. I have two of the bigs, two of the middles and two of the smalls. I need more. I’d ask Santa, but I think the Fab Mr. Flynn would have a conniption fit.
@Olivia: Another librarian here who’s been looking for an app to track/catalogue our shelves and shelves of books. Thanks so much for mentioning the one you use!
I’m so grateful that e-readers came along when they did. Between my husband, daughter, and me, we already have over 4000 books in the house, and have run out of walls on which to put new bookshelves. Our poor house is in danger of sinking into the ground under the weight of all our reading material. E-books, thank heavens, weigh nothing…
Color me jealous! I only have two five-shelf bookcases. However, they books are stored horizontally and double-stacked. I’ve had to start triple-stacking now. And I may have some boxes in my closet and on the floor. And don’t ask me about my Kindle collection. So glad for Goodreads, or I’d never be able to keep track of them all! I used to have to print out lists to take with me so I didn’t buy duplicates.
My bookshelf envy will now eat at me for the rest of the day. I have hundreds of books, thousands of comics, but most of them have been living at my parents house. When I got married I went from bookshelf paradise to one bookshelf in my tiny NYC apartment. I only got said built in shelf after I told then fiancé that I wouldn’t marry him without at least some of my books making the trip. As is when we move we’re (I’m) planning on an extra bedroom for books only.
My husband and I are book hoarders. There I said it. Isn’t that the first step? Admitting you have a problem? Alas, I have no desire to seek help. In fact, SBTB is my enabler, dangling books to tempt me in my addiction. So really it is your fault.
I love your shelves. Sadly, we live in a little condo with minimal space. Much of my collection is under my bed in those long plastic storage boxes. I can fit four of those boxes under my bed. Lots and lots of books beneath me every night… Very comforting.
Original Flowers from the Storm. He’s speaking without words. And it has the Picasso/Flowers from Algernon deep thing going on (at least in my mind). It’s one of my favorite covers of all time.
Even my children’s shelves are double-stacked. I really want to get rid of Mr. Richland’s nonfiction to make more space, but it all looks so important. And mixed with all the books, I have my favorite: 3 ring binders!
And I have four boxes of cookbooks in the basement when we thought we might remodel the kitchen, but I still have eight shelves of cookbooks upstairs in the kitchen, so I don’t know what I took out.
@ Patricia M: Did you find Whitlock’s Book Barn? I adored that place and miss it with a passion. Nothing to compare here in Georgia.
I have one bookcase just for cookbooks by the kitchen door, one for manga, comics, games and old Japanese Perfect Manuals,one for paperbacks (triple stacked), one for hardbacks and one for my antique book collection (Victorian children’s books, mostly)in the living room and family room. I have one in the bedroom for my art and writing reference materials (which is really inconvenient now that my workspace has relocated to the family room) as well as my ever-growing collection of contributor’s copies of all the magazines my designs are in. Hubby has one for his architecture books near his desk and another one for his expanding collection of thrillers, SF and history books. He refuses to double-stack, so the complete Stephen King has relocated to the space under the TV cabinet where the VCR used to sit, Tom Clancy is hiding under the roll-top desk and SM Stirling has laid claim to the top of the organ.
@Avery Flynn: That’s an excellent idea. I have already taken over one room and its closet and there isn’t anywhere left to place a divider, but still, great shelves. I might have to resort to between the wall studs (ha!) next.
Lol, after reading thru the comments, i couldn’the help but think, you might as well change the blog name to “Enabler Bitches Trashy Books”! ????
I am fascinated by the plant books. My collection is more geared towards edibles; Stalking the Wild Asparagus, How to Stay Alive in the Woods, etc.
I have a lot fewer books but I also stack the genre paperbacks 2 deep plus I have 4 cardboard cartons; 2 for PBS swapping, 1 for keepers, and 1 for TBR books.
Two words, y’all: ceiling shelves.
Lookie here: http://cdn.freshome.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/010408_books.jpg
@LaineyT:
Oh, yes, we are very much one another’s enablers. It’s a feature, not a bug!
If we were only going head to head against the first picture, I thought I had you beat. But I don’t. I definitely don’t. And I want to come read ALL THE BOOKS!
And I also have that Fabio version of Flowers from the Storm! Book twins!
The first thing I do at ANY house is seek out a bookcase, and read up every title. Yes, even before I finish saying hi.
My dad admitted we ran out of bookshelf space five years ago. That was before my brother’s university decided to “clean-up” their library shelves by putting the rarely checked-out books out to whoever wanted to grab them.
So yeah, double-stacked, vertical/horizontal variants, shelves edging the ceiling, closets, table surfaces, bathroom drawers, and ye goode ole’ pile on the floor which defies physics and earthquakes and stays up.
The best thing about getting a smartphone was going on vacation and NOT having to choose which books to take.
Which means space to bring books back!
(Seriously, Shakespere & Company near Notre-Dame, I’d camp in your walls if I could)
I’m also bad for owning both Kindle and print copies of the same book. I always worry that if I get rid of my print copy, Amazon will have a huge server crash or something and I’ll lose all my Kindle books.
@Gemma, probably not a bad idea. Amazon actually used to sell e-books before they became easy to read on tablets. I had an HP iPAQ I used to read them on…and because they weren’t popular, Amazon discontinued them and deleted all the accounts so you couldn’t download them again.