Unpacking My Library

Hide them behind things so you're always finding them and saying, "oh, joy, i forgot about this book! i should read it!"

If you can stand the clutter, put a pile of the most exciting ones next to your bed. They'll serve double-duty as a side table and, most importantly, will convey to your bed-side guests the proper air of...literacy.

Or is that giving too much credit?

Pyth, that becomes a nightmare from which you never wake. Early draft of my sooncome W•re piece on L.Bangs began with this exact same phrase, Mr Pinefox: the epigraph that time forgot (or rather, that the editors made me dropSoR).

I think the answer is, provisionally and possible secretly slightly stupidly. Cuz then in six months time you will have to do it all again hurrah. Or else shack up with someone mad for reading, but not in sync with you — who NEVER PUTS ANYTHING AWAY.

(I have always wuvved "Yes I am": it's like panto. Adorno and Krakauer and Brecht all yelling, "Oh no he's not" from the wings...)

I put mine up a box or two at a time. Since i have 72 boxes this will perserve the excitement for a very long time.

'Yes, I am' (complete with "crucial" comma) = one of the oddest / most seemingly inappropriate textual moments in the history of C20 lit crit?

I think that idea needs its own thread.

Have a friend with similar interests arrange them for you. Stacks in front obscuring titles and books wedged in along the top should be encouraged. The idea is to recreate the excitement of exploring a friend's library.

I proposed doing a study of the way people arrange their books for my degree in librarianship. My working title was to be "Vernacular Cataloging Practices." The proposal was shot down immediately by my professor, a strutting martinet if there ever were one.

So was that when you settled for Trauerspiel?

"No name that would be more fittingly honored by silence," from my One Way Street. And accordingly, I still haven't finished the fucking paper.

My technique: ensure you have insufficient shelving (or shelving is taken up with CDs/vinyl. Stack books in precarious piles with only cursory attention paid to relative size of books or feasibility of stack. As you finish books, or acquire additional ones, add them to the stacks in as random a way as you can manage.

The most interesting book is always to be found between half and three quarters of the way down the most precarious stack.

(Hello Ben! Hello Piff!)

vernacular cataloging practices! that's the most brilliant idea I've heard all week!

why is it every time I look through old threads to revive I'm not only re-drawn to the same ones, but it turns out that I already revived them a year ago?

a number of my books are now on a towering shelf after years of boxes and disarray. the arrangement is especially pleasing to me.

Josh - I highly recommend starting a new precarious stack in front of or next to the one you have already created - the thrill of attempting to balance both stacks (especially if you have a decent mix of paper/hard/mass/trade/odd sizes) while reaching for a book that's third from the bottom in the back pile is well worth the effort!

I once lived in a house for two years and never really unpacked my library - instead, I just stacked the boxes on their sides around the perimeter of the spare room and opened their flaps so I could see the contents - the boxes became the impromptu shelving and packing to move was a breeze. Now I am shuddering at the thought of attempting to pack my library to move - it's at 19 double-stacked bookcases right now *shudder*

You know, I was thinking the other day whilst re-shelving some of my books, that maybe ILX should start up a book-swap club. Every now and again I have a bit of a clear-out, and instead of taking the books to Oxfam or whatever, I'd be happy to drop them in the post to other ILXORs. We could start a thread making a list of available books, or make requests for ones we'd really like to get hold of.

(This is possibly the stupidest idea I have ever thought of)

laura, I do not now have a STACK, I have a SHELF with books put on it PROPERLY. and uh some boxes I don't have shelving for. and uh small piles on the floor BUT none with more than 5 or 6 books in them! and those are ONLY TEMPORARY.

I did that box-shelf thing last year. it sucked. I had not much room and too many boxes. also the boxes were big so the books were packed in all stacked so they fell out, not properly so I could look at the spines.

Ha, Josh. You went with the shelving option? Don't you feel all crass and middle-classish? I mean, really. Of course, your'e semi-redeemed by stillhaving some stacks and boxes, so I'll still acknowledge your existence.

About the boxes falling over/books falling out problem - the solution to that is to kick the books around with your feet, until you can see all of the titles - eventually you'll create a mass of books around the room, with a little "stand from and kick" spot in the middle, where you can squat and reach for books that have been kicked too far away to bend over and reach without falling on piles of other books.

cj
that would be a grand fucking idea.
i need to sort out my library though.

my roommate made it out of 2x4s and stuff so it kind of looks like we stole it from a lumberyard, if that makes me any less middle-class (it does not)

But did he use broken concrete blocks to separate the shelves? (Or are we talking about only one shelf here?)

My mother had the perfect example of salvaged woodwork in her cabin - there were log beams in the ceiling, which at one point had been lying in a pile on the ground and dogs had clambered over them with muddy feet. Whoever built the cabin didn't wash the beams before adding them to the frame, so when you were sprawled on the floor and staring at the ceiling you could see all of these footsteps from long-gone dogs.

But back to the shelving issue - you can make it look less pretentious by stealing some milk-crates to hold the boards - or you can take a hammer and old nails and stain and take the board(s) into the backyeard and "weather" them by hitting them with the hammer, staining them, punding in nails and then removing them, repeatedly. Of course you need to be careful in this process to not create something that looks like it might actually be an antique, else you'll be viewed as an aspiring yuppie.

not just one, it's like seven feet tall. unfortunately no blocks. it's got screws in it and everything. I DID have blocks, in the shelves in my first place (with the same roommate), but I uh 'moved up' from those when it turned out the blocks were too heavy to move (getting new blocks here was not an option). I suppose 'moving up' is going to be middle class, too.

I am so sorry about all of this *grin*

Actually, I really like anyone who has lots of books and reads - regardless of they're stored.

I have a luxurious three weeks in which to move but not enough boxes, so we've been filling boxes, dumping them in the new place, then taking them back to refill. We have about 20 10-gallon plastic tubs we're using (I know, just get some boxes from the store, but b/f is strangely bewitched by the martha stewart plastic tubs) and we've made three trips so far and have almost all the books transported. It's a lovely impressive heap of books.

Yes, I am!

There was only one box I couldn't carry into my living room, which I had to open. Naturally it has my linguistics book in it.

What is Yes, I Am?

verb phrase ellipsis + logophoricity?

Gravel & Youn: http://130.238.79.99/ilmh/ren/benj-bookcoll.htm

aw, that is my cat's favorite book

http://static.flickr.com/50/110933860_e62b8a3053.jpg?v=0

I finished. I really don't have that many books. It just took a long time to rearrange them.

my bookshelf never assumes the intricate categorization of my record collection.which i suppose tells you wher emy sympathies lay

I also unpacked my CDs, but that went much faster.

do sympathies lie, or lay?

I think they lie.