It's 2008! What do your books look like?

Two of my library (which I waited for years to be finally be able to have, and is now full, argh!) and one from the room of as-yet unreads.

http://home.iprimus.com.au/jrsmorrison/Images/100_0387.jpg
http://home.iprimus.com.au/jrsmorrison/Images/100_0391.jpg
http://home.iprimus.com.au/jrsmorrison/Images/pmc1.jpg

oooh, I will post up a photo of my 'library' (read: messy cupboard) later!!

Those pictures of JM's library are absolutely staggering. I own thousands of books, and those pictures make me feel like a novice. I just take slight comfort in the fact that along with the marvellous Penguins and Sherlock Holmes he seems to have an extensive Discworld collection. Or maybe it's something else.

Those are Discworld. Wonderful pictures.

Holy fuck. Now that's what I'm talking about.

I am sad to see that Gooo is dead, though.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3163/2677496488_020b7976ea.jpg

Cinderblock shelves and a cat. Hello, grad school.

Those are Discworlds, yes. But in my defence, there's Proust on the shelf immediately below. Actually, I was more worried people would notice the 2 Stephen Kings, which I have at least since got rid of.

I am sad to see that Gooo is dead, though.

That's Chip Kidd's The Cheese Monkeys--I think it's meant to say that 'Good' is dead.

casuistry, those are awesome cinderblocks!

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c133/OysteinietsyO/Seng.jpg

Hrff.

Well, who needs sleep?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2306/2125902235_b4fe54af02.jpg

But...what if you want to see the title of a book?

i remember reading about some dude who had a huge library all turned backwards so he could show off his extensive familiarity with it

now what dude was that

i would be curious to know

It was... you!

Well, who needs sleep?
Yes, quite. I was rather unhappy about that arrangement just a few hours after the picture was taken. I'd taken down half my books from their shelves and was running out of places to stack them. Then it turned out that it was all for naught and the books had to go back up more or less as they had been. Fine waste of a couple of hours.

I'm just posting because I found a bonus-image on my phone.
The inevitable Wodehouse-shelf!
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c133/OysteinietsyO/Wodehouse.jpg

Hrm, except I notice now that the two books on the very right are trying to stomp on the territory of others. I'm pleased to see that this overstepping has been corrected since the picture was taken.
Perhaps this is what we need. The official ILB Wodehouse collections thread! (It may be that I should simply go to bed instead)

Hm, impossible to read those spines too. Good show, crappy camera-phone.

I can see 'I Am A Cat', though. The fate of the cat made me sad.

I see "Metamorphoses" has found a home.

It's more fun when you can barely make out the spines and have to figure out what books they are. Like, after Mating and some Franzen book, there's a thin book with a red spine. Is it "The Crying of Lot 49"? It kind of looks like my copy. But no, the words are all wrong. Hmm.

It becomes like the book geek version of "so not gonna happen".

The book to the right of the thin book with the red spine is George Saunders Pastoralia

i have the complete short stories of saki, but i've never seen that complete novels and plays thing. i'll have to keep an eye out for it.

The red book is in fact another Saunders: CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.

That image is tough to me to, as it was taken prior to the whole deshelfing, so everything's in a different order now.
The downside of having variable-height shelves is that I often have to place books more by height than by some more useful parameter. This was a serious pain earlier today when I started wondering if I might actually own "Mansfield Park" already. The conclusion is that I'm -pretty- certain that I don't. Hrmph.

this is an old bookshelf

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3175/2731316143_3c0a12cba9_b.jpg

came across this pic of my old (very messy) desk too

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3211/2732145898_a38fc57e5c.jpg

Is that James Stewart?

is indeed; think it is in 'rope'

See, it all comes back to Patrick Hamilton in the end.

http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=77143&rendTypeId=4

I thought this said "It's 2008 What do Your Boobs Look Like"? Where the titties at?

Hey- I have the same paperback edition of Barthes's Image Music Text as Webinar! It was something I picked up at a used book stand while visiting London and have never actually read.

I keep forgetting who webinar secretly is. Why on earth didn't you go with cozenge or something.

It's cozen2.0

nu ilx sucks; it won't let me change my screen name

you have to change the e-mail address you log in with

: (

I hear you - I had to close the account I registered with due to spam issues, and now have to log in with a non-existent address if I want to still be who I am. And then, the webmail doesn't work. Oh well.

I guess the admins don't respond to individual appeals?

I want to be cozwn

cowzen

I also have the same edition of Image Music Text.

These photos are from a few months ago but it still looks like this:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2403/1492203129_80fecfd1b3.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2339/1492211241_f4457111d3.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2311/1492224009_8aaa018a2c.jpg

However, I'm moving in less than a month, and hopefully they will be better arranged there.

I am cozwn

I'm Spartacus!

Are you keeping the fischer price stereo when you move? If not, can I have it?

Right now:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3193/2797282871_31a58c7199.jpghttp://farm4.static.flickr.com/3167/2797276971_d9fbddd300.jpg

About 120 of the white boxes and a half-dozen of the brown.

Aww. Although, I suspect by now you guys own stock in a moving supply store.

I'm thinking of advertising myself as a moving consultant. As we were packing up, we found out both neighbors on our floor are also leaving the building for quieter places.

cool thread.

i'll upload mine tomorrow.

I'd do this gladly, but I don't have any space to upload my photos to.

What's a decent free site that would allow me to hot link? It wouldn't need to be a big disk space, but if I am going to use it for ILX it would have to have a fairly generous access allowance.

www.flickr.com, if you have a yahoo email account. or photobucket.

Thanks. I will look into it.

I tested out flickr. It will only export thumbnails to ILX from a free account, not full sized photos. I will look elsewhere.

new shelves! only another four to build http://media.tumblr.com/H2WTdibOFckqx6roLUNFt0TK_500.jpg

Aimless, you need to click on the All Sizes link to get the correct html from Flickr. The same, whether for free or pro account.

stet, awesome! by color!!!

ha, yea! I discovered that I really like most of my red-spined books, and hate all the yellow-spined ones. weird

I am so going to shelve ours that way - that's how I remember books anyway, but the color of the spine. I spent weeks looking for the blue of Independent People (but apparently it is still in storage).

yeh, me too. I can remember what a book looks like even if I've forgotten the title and the author. Hence the shelves (and also why I'm a bit wary of a proper eBook "collection")

stet plz come to our house and build coolio shelves for us

Does this work?

http://i457.photobucket.com/albums/qq300/piltdownman_photos/CIMG5055-1.jpg?t=1220106258

http://s457.photobucket.com/albums/qq300/piltdownman_photos/?action=view¤t=CIMG5057.jpg
http://s457.photobucket.com/albums/qq300/piltdownman_photos/?action=view¤t=CIMG5056.jpg
http://s457.photobucket.com/albums/qq300/piltdownman_photos/?action=view¤t=CIMG5070-1.jpg

hmm.

http://s457.photobucket.com/albums/qq300/piltdownman_photos/?action=view¤t=CIMG5057.jpg

http://i457.photobucket.com/albums/qq300/piltdownman_photos/CIMG5057.jpg

http://i457.photobucket.com/albums/qq300/piltdownman_photos/CIMG5056.jpg

I'll give this a try. Thanks, Jaq.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3282/2809196435_506c841ec3_o.jpg

These are my main bookshelves. From top to bottom shelves:

- Mostly books from circa 600 AD to 1500 AD., usually in translation.
- Poetry in translation. Greek & Roman (left). Other languages (right).
- British (left) and American (right) poetry.
- American poetry
- British poetry
- Religion (left) and dictionaries & language reference (right)
- Greek and Roman classics in translation (non-poetry)

http://i457.photobucket.com/albums/qq300/piltdownman_photos/CIMG5070-1.jpg

http://i457.photobucket.com/albums/qq300/piltdownman_photos/CIMG5069.jpg

I love yours Aimless. I try and collect those Oxford blue collected poets.

I have two smaller 'auxilliary' bookshelves:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3235/2809200333_4687a2fbf7_o.jpg

- History (left), some misc (middle) and some Irish literature (right)
- Books about Oregon (left) the outdoors (middle) and travel (right)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3293/2810049180_8fa345788b_o.jpg

- Mostly science (left) and essays & plays (right)
- Volumes of Mark Twain (left) and other humorists (right)
Sitting on the top: Various books I would like to read soon.

in my first three pics, all the shelves are double-banked.

Lastly, my 'overflow' shelves:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2369/2810047214_e53ed66ca0_o.jpg

There's a little of everything in there. Patrick O'Brian, hiking guidebooks, some poetry I am not as fond of, misc novels. Just stuff.

Frogman, your collection looks exactly like what mine would be like, if I hadn't steeled myself to selling off books long, long ago. I would secretly love to have an ample, sprawling, cozy, well-loved library like yours. But I threw over that dream several decades ago. **sigh**

heh, well it's really a product of insanity. before i got hold of the internet it was spiralling out of control. since then ive given books away, and relocated some to other parts of the house, eg the loft. but still im left with, probably tens of thousands.

Some kinds of insanity are more gratifying than others.

But, yes, the sheer physical bulk and weight of a sprawling library is its worst aspect. I have heard of people having to reinforce the floors of their house in order to bear the weight of a huge library. That sucks.

this is not a photo of my books, but it's a photo of some lucky person's books that are stored in the risers and nooks of a bespoke staircase into their attic.

i love this so much.

http://www.spaceinvading.com/bookmarklet/Images/0401091231094892leoniestair.jpg

http://www.spaceinvading.com/bookmarklet/Images/0401091231094893leoniestair3.jpg

http://www.spaceinvading.com/bookmarklet/Images/0401091231094893leoniestair2.jpg

Drools.

That looks great, but is functionally crap: you'll kick dirt into the books as you climb, and the ones at eye level are furthest from your eyes.

stet, what? that doesn't make any sense. kick dirt on your books? how dirty are your feet going to be as you climb up to your loft? i doubt that dirty booted workies own this bookshelf. i don't see how the be books at eye level being further away makes this any less functional, it might take a second or two longer to get the book you want though. that's like saying my bookshelf at home is less functional because it's in my bedroom and i have to walk next door to get to it. this is obviously imaginatively using a space that would contain only stairs and freeing up another space in an apartment that would otherwise be filled with bookshelves so it's actually functioning extremely well, to my eyes.

The boots don't even have to be dirty. Even internal stairs get crumfty. But the eye-level thing does suck. It's like your bookcase in the bedroom had a guardrail so you couldn't stand any closer than arm's length to it.

It is functioning, just not extremely well. I do think it looks immense, all the same.

http://www.geocities.com/fang_club/working_class_playwright.jpg
One day you'll realize there's more to life than culture. There's dirt and smoke, and good honest sweat."

Does JM upthread imply he has, like, two hundred unread penguin modern classics?

Bought the complete set, IIRC.

When he buys the whole Dalkey Archive as well, then I'll be impressed.

Would it matter if he read them?

I'm working my way through the Penguins! And the Dalkeys! (Just got Ashberry & Schuyler's 'A Nest of Ninnies')

https://witness.theguardian.com/assignment/52af050de4b008af53c5c715