The Amazing Book Story

Sunday, 29 January 2012

So, I think my books are finally in a state I can live with.

To me, one of the most stressful aspects of moving to a new place is that my books don’t have a place to call home. Soon after we moved in to our latest and greatest compound, I set about removing my books from all the boxes (and my 400 books were in about 50 different boxes because my wife has a policy of putting one or two books in every box). In the dining room, we have copious shelf space all conveniently kept behind doors (I guess that makes them cabinets). In fact, we have so much shelving space in the dining room, that I used one shelf for records and CDs, four shelves for board games, three shelves for Owen’s art supplies, then removed two large shelving units and sold them for $45, and STILL had enough room for all of my books.

At first, the books were just in random order, in random position. Some were lying down, some were standing up with the spine facing inwards, others were paired in a naughty, naughty 69 fashion. Clearly, this couldn’t last.

So, one day, I extricated all the books, placed them in stacks relevant to the subject matter, turned some of the stacks into shorter stacks when my wife complained that piling books 50 books high is a danger to small children, then began placing them on the shelves in the correct order.

But I ran into a problem.

It turns out, too many of my books are too tall. If I lowered a shelf so as to accommodate such books, this left too little room on the lower shelves. I tried removing some shelves, but then I didn’t have enough room for all of the books. Jennifer suggested placing all of the really tall books together. Geez, why didn’t she just suggest burning all of the books?

Anyway, as a testament to my unbridled genius and legendary humility, I figured it out. Let me explain it to you via photographs:

So here’s an overview of the majority of the shelving. These are (most of) our nonfiction books. They are all organized by subject, from most important to least important area of human endeavor. They begin with general knowledge in the top left, proceed through mathematics, physics, cosmology, astronomy, geography, biology (animal and then human), the social sciences, language, history, biography, the arts (painting and photography, then film and television, then music), humor, and religion.

Here’s where the enormity of my genius is on display. Notice this particular module of the shelving begins with the rest of my astronomy books. This then melds into books on the environment, nature, and the animal kingdom. Unfortunately, some of the nature and animal books are so tall, they were part of the problem I noted earlier. Therefore, I laid them on their sides, and adjusted the shelving such that it was only tall enough to fit these “sleeping” books. The bottom shelf picks up where these two modified shelves left off, continuing with the rest of the animal books.

Notice, too, that lying these books down resulted in an empty area on the right side of the shelves. I filled this space with unusually small books – the kind of books that inadvertently get pushed into the back. The one on the second shelf, for example, is a field guide to birds. Now, not only won’t this tiny book get lost in the shuffle, but I can access it easily when going camping (and, yes, I do take it camping).

More genius. For some reason, our collection of dictionaries consist of two sizes: absurdly small and freakin’ huge. Again, I adjusted the relevant shelving and laid the two large dictionaries on their sides and placed the baby dictionaries on top, where they can snuggle in and stay warm. Awww. Note that keeping these dictionaries on their sides is less stressful on their already taxed spines. Yes, my solution is that awesome.

On the adjacent wall of the dining room is this shelving unit. I am using it for our fiction collection. This one had me stumped for a while, but by simply putting the books in alphabetical order (by author’s last name), I was able to place half the books on the top shelf and half on the bottom. The taller books are all by author’s with last names beginning with K-Z. This left too few books on the top shelf to look “right,” so I supplemented the shelf with two previously unused bookends.

The only oddballs here were the Little House collection of books and Gone With the Wind, a mammoth tome my wife picked up while touring Margaret Mitchell’s home in Atlanta. I deftly solved this predicament by placing these two items – which, I think you’ll agree, have a certain “oh, look at us!” quality about them – on their own shelves. I placed them at an angle, because that’s all cool and whatnot.

FUN FACT: The bookends were a wedding gift – a subtle reference to a Simon and Garfunkel song, but not the one you’d think.

Finally: This shelf is in the kitchen. There was no room for them in the dining room, but that’s okay. As you can see, this shelf is largely cook books, so they belong in the kitchen. The other books on this shelf have to do with home improvement so, you know, they seem to fit closer to the tool box, too. Now that I look at this photo, I see our book about vegetarian cooking is upside down. Damn. That’s gonna bug me to no end.

And, no, you can’t borrow any of them.

Now stop getting all voyeuristic about what books we own and get on with your own life.