bookshelves Archives - Page 3 of 4

threat averted (I hope)

I recently spent half a morning involved in a serious cleaning operation and inspecting the bookshelves thoroughly, taking out each volume to fan its pages and dusting around, atop and behind all the books.

Because I found this nasty little critter:

photo credit: Pjbryant

Three of them, actually. Scurrying up the wall. Silverfish. They EAT BOOKS. Also cotton, starch, flour, etc. Multiply like crazy. Hard to get rid of once you have a serious infestation.

It\’s in my small office room that I\’ve seen them. My office doesn\’t house a lot of books; there\’s just a handful of reference books in there but also all my sketchbooks, which I hold dear. And I don\’t want my documents getting destroyed either. The strange thing is that I\’ve seen the silverfish near the file cabinet, but carefully went through all the drawers and see no damage to any paper. Nor is there any dampness there, which also attracts the pests. (I have been very careful to keep my books away from dampness, as I have a horror of mold). I am hoping they are just scouting from an adjacent apartment, and haven\’t actually set up house in my walls or corners, yet.

I\’ve called the management to send in pest control, before this gets out of hand. I was horrified when I first saw an insect run up the wall; I thought it was a roach and I detest those things. I was perhaps even more horrified when I realized it was a silverfish and could easily destroy my entire library. My boyfriend joked about it, saying \”they like to eat books? Well, they\’ve come to the right place!\” but I didn\’t think that was funny at all. Especially concerning as I have plenty of older books acquired from used shops, with yellowed, weary pages (tempting to pests). It did spur me on to dust everything very thoroughly. So I went through all the bookcases in the other room methodically (do you know how tiring it is to move 897 books? -current count- even if just lifting a few at a time off the shelves and then putting them back?) The good thing is that I found no signs of damage there (thank god).

Strangely it was nice to go through all the books, even for such an alarming reason. I paused over many, turning a few pages, remember why I enjoyed them so, wonder when I\’ll get to visit them personally again. I keep thinking it would be nice to only reread my favorites off my own shelves, for a whole year. I wonder how many I would get through… If anything it was even more pleasant to look through all the TBR shelves, suddenly struck again by my interest in all these books and hoping to get to them sooner now, rather than later.

I did a bit of shuffling too, moving a few to another shelf and removing two volumes altogether, which made enough space to properly shelve upright the handful that had been sitting horizontally across the tops of other books. I\’ve heard that it isn\’t good to cram your books in tightly wedged together, they need room to breathe a little bit. But I\’m guilty of crowding them in, and actually wedge them close on the bottom shelves on purpose to deter my toddler from pulling them off the shelves!

I gave my older daughter a complete set of the Chronicles of Narnia. It has all seven books bound together in one fat volume. With the original illustrations by Pauline Baynes. I happen to have all seven books individual as well, ones that I sought out at used sales as a kid until I had collected them all. Don\’t really need the redundancy and my daughter was thrilled to have it for her own!

What about you? Do you squeeze your books in as tight as they can go? Have you ever come across critters that threaten your library? I seriously hope this is the last I see of them!

Tags: bookshelves

stacks of books and a red rubber pony

Because I know you like to look at books. Or you wouldn\’t be here, right? And finally, after moving about five months ago, I have organized my bookshelves! They were all a jumble, just put up any-which-way when unpacking from boxes. Here\’s some of the sorting that went on.

First I pulled all the keepers off the shelves. The books behind the red pony, on the floor and three shelves just to the right behind his butt, are all unread books. Yikes! The lowest middle shelf is juvenile fiction I keep accessible for my daughter, the next bottom shelf (going right) is baby board books for my toddler, and the last bottom shelf in corner is oversize coffee-table type books.

Then I sorted them into two main heaps: fiction and non-. Asked my kid which she wanted to \”play\” with- she was making stacks of books into stairs for her slinky to walk down. She said the fiction, because guessed there would be more books in that pile. And she was right, I think! Here on the floor are all the fiction, with non-fiction shelved again to the far right, organized more-or-less by subject.

That was it, I took a break for a day. This afternoon took all the fiction books and sorted them into piles by first letter of author\’s last name, and then further sorted each stack as I shelved them, until all were alphabetized.

It was quite a task! In the process I also dusted and flipped most of the shelves (they start to bow downwards under the weight of books so I turn the adjustable ones over periodically). I found in the sorting that I have a lot of books whose author name starts with S. And not a single one with I or Q. And only one book by a Z author- can you guess which?

I also found that I miss my books. Handling them all and turning a few pages here and there made me really want to sit down and read them all. But I have had little time for reading this year (as I\’m sure you\’ve noticed by the frequency of baby-book posts here). I did however note a lot of authors I want to read more of, and am surprised I haven\’t yet. Must find a way to remedy that! They are:

Marion Zimmer Bradley- only read Mists of Avalon and always wanted to try more
Orson Scott Card (the Ender books- I still haven\’t read the two most recent ones)
Pat Conroy- only have read Prince of Tides and must read more!
Bryce Courtenay- only have read Power of One and want to read more!
Barbara Hambly- want to read more of her stuff beyond the Winterlands series (which I loved)
Richard Kennedy- did he ever write anything besides Amy\’s Eyes? must find out
Gregory McGuire- liked very much Wicked and the stepsister book, I know there\’s a lot more!
Neville Shute- only read A Town Like Alice, must try more
Barbara Kingsolver- loved Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Prodigal Summer and Poisonwood Bible; I suspect I\’ll like most everything she\’s written.

that all sounds very repetitive- must have more!- but it\’s the prevailing sentiment about books!

And then there\’s quite a few authors that are out-of-print or not popular (at least, not in my library) so I keep them in the back of my mind for hunting in used bookshops, to see if I can make more discoveries: David Stephen, May Sarton, Richard Balch, Will James, and Rumer Godden begin that list.

And has Elizabeth Marshall Thomas written any more books about prehistoric peoples? because even though I found lots of criticism on the accuracy of her depictions in those, I still enjoyed them a lot…

Tags: bookshelves

rearranging

I have just spent the better part of two days rearranging furniture and shifting some 750 books in order to have them all situated in my bedroom. This is because before the bookshelves were mostly in the room the kids use as a playroom, and the baby was starting to pull books off shelves, or (worse, I think) pick at and tear the edges of dust jackets. This is one of her favorite activities; she has more fun pulling all her books off her shelf than actually reading them (lately she tries to turn the pages herself and sometimes gets frustrated trying to open the book at its spine! lots of screaming ensues- it\’s so funny).

So I moved them all. In the process everything got thoroughly dusted and all the adjustable shelves flipped (because they start to bow from the weight of books- does anyone else do this? flip their shelves periodically?) and the nonfiction section re-organized a little bit. I also pulled a short bookcase out of my closet and dedicated it to TBR books. It all looks so nice and tidy, now. Before, there were plenty of books tucked in horizontally across the others because I didn\’t have more shelf space. With the addition of one little bookcase I was able to spread everything out evenly, with room to spare. The TBR is in the little bookcase, but doesn\’t quite fill it completely, and also the last lower shelf of the tall cases. The tall case next to the lamp is all non-fiction, which continues around the corner and fills the second bookcase too (except the bottom shelf which has oversize books). The rest is all fiction. Bottom two shelves behind the rocking chair has random stuff like magazines and sketchbooks, which I could move out when the room is needed for books. Across the top are the puzzles and games.

I\’m pleased overall. Something about moving and re-organizing and re-familiarizing myself with all my books feels very satisfying. I keep turning over in my hands titles I\’d dearly love to re-read! And now my bedroom feels like a little library, which is very cozy.

If you look real close, you can see a flat black thing on top of the small shelf- that\’s my kindle. It has twenty-three books on it now! You can click to zoom in on the photo, but I don\’t think it\’s clear enough to read many titles.

Tags: bookshelves

the dare shelves

In anticipation of dedicating the first several months of 2011 to reading off my TBR shelves alone, I\’ve gone and organized them all more or less by subject. Sometimes I just like sorting books. It makes me feel pleased. Here\’s what I\’ve got.

The small two-shelf piece in my bedroom now holds all the adult fiction. In no particular order. Bottom right corner has what I think of as the \”heavy books\”- a few classics and chunksters I\’ve failed to get through before or just been feeling intimidated by! (Starting with the orange spine of Dubliners and going over to the red-bound Dickens novel).

Out in the living room I have a tall bookcase that only holds TBR books. The top shelf here has all the memoirs. (If you click on any of these photos to enlarge you should be able to read some titles, although some are a bit blurry). At the end there they run into adventure stories (mostly of seafaring types) and the second shelf is non-fiction on various subjects, from earthquakes, global warming and writing to cooking, gardening and plant care. There\’s a few slim volumes of poetry in there too.

The next shelf down finishes up the plants and has nature and animal books. Bottom shelf starting at the left has juvenile books about animals (mostly fiction) then some YA and a few fantasy books, ending with Catching Fire (I don\’t have the first one in the series so I probably won\’t get to read that one or I\’d be breaking the Dare by visiting the library!). The last eleven books on that shelf don\’t count; I\’ve actually read them before. The only reason they\’re sitting in the TBR is that it\’s been so long since I last read them I\’m not sure if they\’re ones I want to keep. So I plan on giving them a new read before I decide to shelve them with the collection or hand on.

I almost forgot to include the oversize books off my \”coffee-table\” shelf, in the other bookcase that holds all my permanent collection. Most of these are nature/animal books, with a few on gardening/food and art.

And that\’s it! Now I feel like I\’ll easier be able to zero in on what I\’m in the mood for, when searching for a read during the Dare. My Library Thing says I\’ve got 121 unread books but when I try to count them on the actual shelves it\’s more like 184; I must\’ve forgotten to enter a few titles when they came into the house. Still, plenty to choose from!

Tags: bookshelves

Meme: Bedside

from Booking Through Thursday

What books do you have next to your bed right now? How about other places in the house? What are you reading?

It\’s easiest just to show you a picture. My bedside table is a bookshelf, so right now it\’s full of books I\’m hoping to read for challenges this year (progress middling so far). The ones on the top are what remains from my last library haul, with my current read Chasing Kangaroos, on top. (The other three are The Wild Trees, The Natural History of Unicorns and The Life of the Skies).

Across the room is another full bookcase that holds the rest of my TBR books. I have a goal to get enough read or discarded (the ones I end up not liking) so that my TBR books just fit in the bedside shelves, but I don\’t know how realistic that is!

As for the rest of the house, The Arrival is still sitting on the couch, because my husband just finished reading it to my daughter, and she\’s still enjoying looking at the pictures now and again. And then, of course, there\’s the wall of shelves that holds my permanent collection, which I\’ve shown in pictures before, although it\’s been rearranged since and looks a bit different now. It was fun to look at those older pictures of my bedside shelf and realize I have gone through a third, at least, of the books that used to sit there. They do shuffle in and out. So I guess that\’s some progress!

Tags: bookshelves, memes

Defined by books

A little while back I was tagged for this meme, and when I saw it on Paperback Reader this morning, realized I hadn\’t done it yet! The rules are:

1.) Go to your bookshelves…
2.) Close your eyes. If you\’re feeling really committed, blindfold yourself.
3.) Select ten books at random. Use more than one bookcase, if you have them, or piles by the bed, or… basically, wherever you keep books.
4.) Use these books to tell us about yourself – where and when you got them, who got them for you, what the book says about you, etc. etc…..
5.) Have fun! Be imaginative. Doesn\’t matter if you\’ve read them or not – be creative. It might not seem easy to start off with, and the links might be a little tenuous, but I think this is a fun way to do this sort of meme.
6.) Feel free to cheat a bit, if you need to…

So I walked along my permanent collection shelves, which line one wall of our living room, and closed my eyes to grab ten books. Here they are:

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell- this is one of those books I would never have read, if I hadn\’t met my husband! When I was in school I read 1984 and Animal Farm, but I never knew Orwell wrote novels, too. My husband and I discovered this together, and for a time every visit I made to a used bookstore I would search their shelves for any Orwell novels. We read and discussed most of them together. We\’re still trying to finish off our Orwell collection. This one\’s not really a novel; it\’s based on true experience, but it has the same style and feel.

The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerian- even by my standards, this book is kind of weird. It\’s about a group of talking animals on a farm ruled by the rooster Chanticleer, in a world before humans existed and ends up as a battle between the rooster and a monster from the deep. It has a lot of subtly religious themes; sometimes I feel like it\’s all supposed to be allegorical about something Biblical. I really don\’t know how to explain this one. I love it just because it\’s a great story and the characters are vivid and fascinating, and it makes me laugh out loud. I guess it just shows how much I like animals, fantasy, and books that are different from the rest. When I first read this book I was prone to underlining, it\’s full of pencil marks all over the place.

At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald- I can\’t remember how I first stumbled upon this book, but it\’s one I\’ve read several times since childhood. I read all the George MacDonald I could get my hands on, at one time, and this one was always my favorite. It\’s a gentle little story about a quiet boy, different from the rest, who befriends the mystical North Wind, and she carries him away on a strange dreamlike journey.

Pinocchio by G Collodi- My copy of this book is very old, shabby and falling apart. I think I found it in a used bookstore somewhere. Once I found out that some of the well-known Disney fairy tales were based on actual books, I sought most of them out- Bambi, the Hundred and One Dalmations, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, etc. Pinocchio the book is quite different from its film counterpart- the storyline is a lot longer, and wandering, and full of many different adventures.

The Moorchild by Louise McGraw- a story about an odd girl who doesn\’t fit in with the other children in the village, until she discovers that she has fairy blood, and seeks out the fey people under the hill, to steal back the child that was switched with her at birth. What does this one say about me? I like reading fantasy, and books about strange children…

A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeline L\’Engle- I loved the Wrinkle in Time series as a kid, but this book was always one of the more difficult ones for me. I loved that it had a flying unicorn in it, but the parts about Charles Wallace inhabiting different people in different times really confused me the first time I read it. It\’s one of those books I\’m almost afraid to go back and read again, for fear the adult me won\’t like it quite as much as the young me did, and I\’ll be disappointed.

Illusions by Richard Bach- I was surprised and delighted when I first read Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and afterwards tried several other Bach books. None of the others struck me quite the same way, but this one was pretty good- it\’s about a pilot who travels the countryside giving rides to people in his small plane, and at the same time taking an inward journey into spiritualism. I haven\’t read it in ages.

In the Company of Newfies by Rhoda Lerman- love books about dogs, what more can I say? This one is about a woman who loves newfoundlands, and her life with the huge gentle dogs. It\’s very beautifully written as well, I really like the way Lerman uses words. If I can ever find another book she\’s written, I want to read it.

Eye of the Albatross by Carl Safina- another one of my favorite subjects is books about the experiences of naturalists in the field. Usually those are about mammals in Africa or something similar, but this one is about a small ocean island, and mostly focuses on the bird populations there. It\’s well-written and fascinating.

Making Things Grow Outdoors by Thalassa Cruso- I\’ve always had something of a green thumb, but never really got into gardening until we owned our own house with a backyard I could dig up! It\’s only been two years, but already I\’ve got a small collection of gardening books. Thalassa Cruso is my favorite author on gardening so far- she\’s so easygoing, fun and informative to read.

Well, I\’m not sure I did that quite right. I didn\’t really get any hardcore fantasy or sci fi in there, or any of the classics that are on my shelf, but it\’s a pretty good sample of the books I own and love. I don\’t know how much this told you about me, but I do know it\’s made me want to go back and re-read a bunch of those books!

I can\’t think who to tag for this right now, and my husband and kid are bugging me to go cook up a huge waffle breakfast while the snow is falling outside, so I have to skip off the computer and into the kitchen. If you\’ve read this and find it interesting, consider yourself tagged! I\’d love to see what\’s on your shelves.

(If you\’re the person who originally tagged me for this meme, please let me know so I can give you credit! I can\’t remember and I thought I had your meme bookmarked but now I can\’t find it sorry).

Tags: bookshelves, memes

Meme: Unread

from Booking Through Thursday:

So here today I present to you an Unread Books Challenge. Give me the list or take a picture of all the books you have stacked on your bedside table, hidden under the bed or standing in your shelf – the books you have not read, but keep meaning to. The books that begin to weigh on your mind. The books that make you cover your ears in conversation and say, ‘No! Don’t give me another book to read! I can’t finish the ones I have!’

You must have read my mind, BTT. I really wasn\’t going to post again today, but I was already planning to take stock of the remaining piles after my challenge-progress evaluation earlier this morning. I rearranged all my books so that the unread ones are in, on or around my bedside shelf. It\’s overwhelming! The ones I\’m planning on reading next, for various current and upcoming challenges, are stacked on top. I have 132 total unread books, and if you want to see what they all are, the list is on Library Thing. Hm, even though I feel I\’ve read a lot of books since the last post, I don\’t feel like I\’ve made much progress… somehow more books come in than go out…

Tags: bookshelves, memes

reading goals

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I have a headache today so instead of posting about a book I\’m just going to share some photos. Of (what else?) books in my house! There\’s too many. My heaps of yet-unread books are getting overwhelming, so I\’ve decided to make a focused effort at reading those first- neglecting for even longer the TBR list I add to daily from all the wonderful book blogs, and resisting the urge to browse shelves at the library when I\’m picking up books for my daughter.

These shelves are my permanent collection. They\’re not all books: the top of the bookcases has some stuff left over from when my husband built our last computer, and the bottom right-hand and middle shelves have games and some oversized picture books. I don\’t have many reader friends, so the most frequent comment I get when people visit our house is: have you actually read all these books? The answer is yes, except for the coffee-table ones (about a dozen) which I treasure for their gorgeous photos but haven\’t gotten around to reading yet.

Okay, just for fun I made a kind of map of the shelves. Hopefully if you click on it you can get a bigger image and read it!

These are the books in my bedroom, waiting to be read. The first pile is on top of my dresser:
The second pile is on the floor near my bed:
And then there\’s two shelves that serve as my bedside table:
Enough books for years! So I\’ve made a goal to seriously diminish these piles, starting with the dresser heap, then the floor ones, and hopefully getting it down to a TBR load that my bedside shelf can contain, before I start picking books from my lists again. Maybe I ought to join a challenge to help me stay motivated with this- are there any going on currently about reading your own books, or tackling your TBR? I don\’t know how far I can get with this before I break down and pick up a book that doesn\’t already have physical presence in my house. Any guesses how long it will take me to work through those piles? (Keep in mind that I probably will taste just twenty pages or so and then set aside quite a few of these).

Tags: bookshelves

Meme: the Bookshelf

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I saw this meme going around the book blogs several weeks ago, first spotted it at Eva\’s The Striped Armchair. I kept thinking I wanted to get around to it myself, but never did until finally Janet from Across the Page tagged me, so I figured I\’d better do it soon! These questions took a lot more thought than I expected.

Tell about the book that’s been on your shelves the longest.

Can I do more than one?

My daughter has inherited most of my picture books. I think The Little Red Caboose is the oldest one. I can\’t remember where it first came from, it\’s just always been there in my memory.

The oldest book on my own shelves, that\’s harder. Most of the paperbacks I kept for years and years have gradually been replaced by newer copies of themselves. Here\’s one of the few mass market paperbacks I have left; as you can see, it\’s about ready to fall apart. I can\’t count how many times I\’ve read Tolkien\’s Smith of Wooten Major and Farmer Giles of Ham. It\’s charming and funny and very insightful, too.

Tell about a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (i.e. a person, a place, a time, etc.). . .

When I was a young girl I used to visit an elderly woman in my church, and read to her from the scriptures, as her eyesight was failing. When she was in the hospital I visited her there as well, and I remember reading the 23rd Psalm aloud until I had it almost memorized.

This book, Ride the Laughing Wind, was a gift from her. It took me a long time to read it, but when I finally did I enjoyed it very much. It\’s a curious novel placed in history, among Native Americans of the southwest. I think they were Anasazi, but I\’m not sure. The story is about a young woman who remains alone with two young boys from her tribe, and how they survive in the desert. Whenever I pick this book up I remember of the woman who gave it to me.
A book you acquired in some interesting way (gift, serendipity in a used bookstore, prize, etc.):

Once when on a road trip with my family, we stopped in a small town somewhere to eat and there just happened to be a used book store across the street. Of course, I had to go in. I was thrilled to find two books I really wanted, String Lug the Fox by David Stephen and Davita\’s Harp by Chaim Potok. I didn\’t have enough money on me for the two books, so after leaving them on the counter I ran back to the car and begged my mom for some more change. When I went back in the bookstore, I still didn\’t have enough for both, so I reluctantly put Davita\’s Harp aside. I was astonished and delighted when the lady at the counter said it was so nice to see a young person who loved reading (I think I was about fifteen) and she gave me both books for the price of one. It was totally unexpected, and I was so happy.

Tell about the most recent addition to your shelves. . .

Last week I got Invincible from Paperback Swap, because my husband recommended it, in his unceasing efforts to get me to appreciate football. Hopefully it turns out better for me than Get Your Own Damn Beer did. I had to wait a long time for it, though.

(Now we\’re waiting for a Scrabble Dictionary, so we won\’t have to jump up in the middle of our games to check definitions on the computer!)

Tell about a book that has been with you the most places. . .

Well, right now I really don\’t carry any one book with me on trips, as I\’m usually reading something different every time. And most of my favorites have survived numerous cullings when I move, so I can\’t think of one that\’s been in more of my previous homes than the others. But for many, many years when I was religious, I took this book with me everywhere I traveled. And read it almost every night, too. It\’s been a while since I opened it, but I still have several well-worn and marked-in copies, one on the shelf and several others in closeted boxes.

Tell me about a bonus book that doesn’t fit any of the above questions. . .

This is probably the most treasured book on my shelves, and one I\’m betting none of you have heard of before. It\’s a slim, aged volume called Echos from Tiverton, by one Fanny A. Durfee. The book itself is old, published in 1909 by a printer on Rhode Island named Thomas Clapp. The book is full of poems, and its author is an ancestor of mine. I\’m not really keen on poetry, but I\’ve read this volume all the way through. Many of the poems (if I remember rightly) are odes to people- family members, friends, members of the community, who had passed away. Others commemorate weddings and births, or speak of faith. I handle this book with care when I open its pages to glimpse into the past.

Now I\’m supposed to tag some other bloggers. So (if you haven\’t already done this meme!) I tag Chris, Nymeth, Chartroose, Raych, Jessica, Bookfool, Natasha– oh wait, did it say five? (see rules below) well whoever\’s reading this and wants to join in, please do, because I\’d like to tag all of you!

The Rules
1. Tag 3-5 people, so the fun keeps going!
2. Leave a comment at the original post at A Striped Armchair, so that Eva can collect everyone’s answers.
3. If you leave a comment and link back to Eva as the meme’s creator, she will enter you in a book giveaway contest! She has a whole shelf devoted to giveaway books that you’ll be able to choose from, or a bookmooch point if you prefer.
4. Remember that this is all about enjoying books as physical objects, so feel free to describe the exact book you’re talking about, down to that warping from being dropped in the bath water…
5. Make the meme more fun with visuals! Covers of the specific edition you’re talking about, photos of your bookshelves, etc.

Tags: bookshelves, memes

Meme: Seven Random

Facts about me and books

I was tagged for this by Leah from The Octogon. It took me a while to think of answers, as I did a similar meme a while back; and I\’m not sure they\’ve very random, but here you go:

– My father used to say that I ought to run a used bookstore. This back in high school when half of one wall in my bedroom was just books. I always thought in return: why? I want to keep my books, not sell them. But now I do so much online swapping, constantly wrapping books to ship, I almost feel like I am.

– Every year or so I rearrange all the books on my shelves. Sometimes I want to see everything an author has written side by side (fiction and non-), other times I like the books to be organized by subject (even down to what kind of fantasy it is). Right now the books are just split into three groups: nonfic by subject, children\’s fiction by title (I\’m going through them with my daughter) and all the rest of the fiction by author.

– I never know what to do when someone gives me a book I already own. I love getting books, but this makes me feel awkward. I have duplicate copies of several books in my collection because someone gave me a lovely new copy, but for various reasons I want to hold onto the old ones as well.

– I don\’t use bookmarks anymore. I used to have a little collection, but I\’ve lost them all. When I started taking notes about my reading I\’d have a bookmark and a piece of notepaper floating around to jot things on. So I started just keeping the notepaper in the book instead of bookmarks.

– I have a huge scrap file of pictures from magazines, that I collected back when I wanted to be a children\’s book illustrator. I thought it would be useful: what if one day I needed to know what sailboat rigging looked like, or an exotic costume, or a hummingbird in flight? (this before internet was at my fingertips). Now I just use the scrap file occasionally to make custom book jacket covers, and I\’ve been thinking lately of making booksmarks. But then I don\’t know what I\’d do with them!

– I always have the intention of keeping business cards from all the used bookstores I visit, especially those I know I probably won\’t be to again (on travels). But then I forget, or loose them, or feel like it would be an incomplete collection since I haven\’t always done it. So I hardly have any. Silly.

– I have, however, saved every public library card. Except for the one I used the longest- from the King County Public Library system, where I grew up in Seattle. I don\’t know what happened to that one. Here\’s all the rest, indicating other places I\’ve lived: Madison County (Rexburg, ID); San Francisco; Sonoma County (Petaluma, CA); Baltimore, MD; Fairfax, VA and currently, Loudon County (Sterling, VA). I could easily describe all the library branches I used in these various systems, their different policies and programs, layout of the bookshelves, which new books I discovered there, etc- but that\’s for another post someday.

The rules of this meme are pretty standard: link to who tagged you, post the rules, share seven random facts about yourself (bookish, in this case), tag seven new people and give links to their blogs, visit the people you\’ve tagged and leave them a comment to tell them about it.

I\’m tagging Raych of books i done read, Trish the Hey, Lady! Whatcha Readin\’?, Petunia of Educating Petunia, Jessica at Both Eyes Book Blog, Chris of Stuff as Dreams are Made On, Steph who writes The Kea and the Literary Wombat. And anyone else who wants to just join in.

Tags: bookshelves, memes

Tag: bookshelves

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