Bookshelves

As I mentioned earlier this week, I can no longer “steal” pictures from the interwebs that don’t belong to me.  This doesn’t necessarily take much away from my blog – it just means I have to be a little more creative in providing visual content.

So while I spent the day cleaning my apartment, I decided to take some pictures for a blog post about bookshelves.  More specifically, my bookshelves.

I have five bookshelves in my apartment, all filled with books.  I probably have too many – shelves and books – but it’s just one of the things I like to collect.  I love checking out books from the library, but there’s nothing like the look of bookshelves lining your walls.

Like the weirdo geek I am, I try to keep each bookshelf categorized, though I admit they’re not as organized as I’d like them to be.   This one above contains mostly fiction books, the top shelf lined with my Laura Ingalls and Harry Potter collection, and The Series of Unfortunate Events right below them.  All of my Roald Dahl hardcovers are also located on this bookshelf.

The bottom shelf contains my husband’s Time Life Books collection of Mysteries of the Unknown (27 books total).  They’re seriously awesome yet seriously creepy books that you can spend hours looking at if you’re not afraid to open your mind a little bit.

On the opposite wall we have another bookshelf filled with mostly random fiction, if you exclude the top shelf that contains Blu-Rays and DVDs.

There’s absolutely no organization to this shelf.  This is usually where the random “just picked up from the used book sale” book ends up.  Plus, there’s also these:

If you love history, Scotland, romance, and time travel, then you’ll probably love Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series.  If you have the means, I highly recommend picking them up.  They’re so choice.*

*Copyright Ferris Bueller

Like the previous bookshelf, the bottom shelf also contains a large, heavy, and old set of encyclopedias – though they’re way more fun than your average ‘pedia…

Best encyclopedia ever, right?  And even though they’re way outdated, they’re tons of fun to look at.  Twenty books in all, they’re a great way to spend a rainy afternoon with the kids.  Or alone.  With wine.  Whatever.

I apologize for this next bookshelf.  It’s quite messy and probably the least-visited bookshelf in the place.

The top three shelves are full of non-fiction books:  cookbooks, movie books, dictionaries, etc.  The bottom two shelves contain old photo albums, DVD wallets, and board games.  Sometimes I call this bookshelf “The Husband’s Shelf” because he tends to throw his stuff there.  There is, however, a seriously cool book on this shelf.

Not much I can say about this other than “Star Wars Porn”.  Seriously.  The mother-load.  Right there.

After this we head in to my bedroom (well, it’s my husbands, too, but mostly mine) where I have my very own bookshelf devoted strictly to young adult books.  I’m sure my husband thought he was being nice by letting me do this, but I know it’s because he was slightly embarrassed about my obscene collection of young adult reading.

Here you will find books such as The Princess Diaries series, the Twilight saga, and other random teen books about paranormal romance and quirky characters.  For some reason this bookshelf makes me smile whenever I enter the room, like, “Wow, all these awesome books are mine!  I have my own teen section of a pretend library!”

And even though these aren’t considered “teen” books, it does contain this wonderful, enchanting series:

What is Moomintroll?  Where is Moominvalley?  Who is Moominpappa?  Well, you’ll just have to read them to find out.  If you like intellectual, heartfelt creatures and Finland, then you’ll fall in love with the world of Moomins.

The last bookshelf in the house is located in my daughter’s room.  She’s four years old and has lots of books about princesses and, well, princesses.  But she has more than just Golden Books and Easy Readers.  She’s also got some pretties that I tend to look at more then she does.

Jealous.  Yeah, I kind of am, too.

So that’s our little library in our little apartment, which I consider to be the heart of the place.  I look at these bookshelves and I see me and my little family and everything that we love.  They’re what make our home our home.  I’ve heard people say, “Oh, you have too many books!”  Or “Have you even read all of these?”  “Ever heard of a library?”  And I say to them…

“They’re books.  Does it matter?”

Happy reading!