As summer winds down, I have been in a tidying up sort of mood. Unfortunately this hasn't managed to spill over into making my book shelves look pretty. Of course, those are so often in flux that as soon as I finish they will be a disaster all over again and I could start over at the beginning. I'll be honest, it's also an overwhelming task! Here are a few of the shelves on the first floor as they look today. Note the books stacked in front of the tidily shelved bits.
And those shelves are much tidier than the ones in the public basement areas:
And if these are the ones that anyone coming to my house can see, you will just have to imagine how disastrous the ones in the non-public areas of the house look. (I do have pictures but I'd like to hang onto them and only share them once I've cleaned up the horrendous mess--which possibly means never.)
Maybe cleaning these up will be my fall/winter project, at least the publicly viewable ones. Then again, my daughter wants to move into her older brother's room now that he's gone off to college and he doesn't object so I might just be moving two rooms instead of doing book things!
This past week, I have traveled all over in my reading. I went to Naples, Florida in the 1960s as the members of the literary society there tried to stop development in the Everglades. I went to the beach in Newport, Rhode Island as a woman tries to meet men after her former fiance dumped her via Facebook. I went to Concord, Massachusetts and France as the youngest sister of Louisa May Alcott strives to be taken seriously as a painter. I went to Washington, DC and Boston and Providence, Rhode Island as two spelling bee champions meet, marry (maybe), and cross into and out of each others' lives for years. I am also still in the midst of St. Malo, France during WWII with a blind French girl and a German soldier who specializes in radios and in London and the woods with a survivalist father and the daughter he's taken into the woods with him. Where have your reading travels taken you this past week?
You weren't kidding! You have a house full! I bet you wouldn't notice if I sneaked 2 or 3 dozen out....mwahahahaha. ;)
ReplyDeleteI love your literary travels :) and I'm drooling over those lovely bookshelves!
ReplyDeleteWow.......that is a LOT of books! I don't envy you the task of organizing them, but what a great feeling it will be once you have accomplished it right?
ReplyDeleteI always get a warm fuzzy when I recognize a book from your travel description. It's rare when I to a book before you, especially since most of my fiction reading comes from you!
ReplyDeleteI love seeing book shelves -- yours are wonderful.
Okay, that's a lot of book shelves. They look so inviting! I love organising and reorganising my books, but it's easier with a smaller collection. I've just persuaded my partner that we need a new bookcase for our bedroom - not because we're out of space on our other shelves (yet) but because I hate not having books in our room except the small pile on my bedside table!
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the organising.
I think I may have traveled to some of the same places via literature!
ReplyDeleteThis week I’ve been in New Hampshire reading about the life of poet and novelist May Sarton.
I was in America in a small beach side town where everyone knew everyone else's business! and now am in 1939 france.
ReplyDeleteIt's all good! Just think of the books you have at the ready for the apocalypse.
ReplyDeleteHere's my Sunday Salon!
Wow. That is a lot of books? Do you have them organized by subject, author, or just random?
ReplyDeletehttp://headfullofbooks.blogspot.com/2015/09/sunday-monday-salon-september-6th.html
Uhh. I guess I've been exploring another planet this week. :)
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