The shelfish gaze

[larryhammer]

My reflex on entering any house or office is to look through the bookshelves. Which is a little bit of "hey can I borrow that" and, okay, a little bit of snooping, but it's also a personal introduction -- your books show a contour of your mind. I justify that mixed-motive claim by noting that the shelf I most want to check out is the most private of all: the nightstand. What does this person end the day with, intend to get to, keep by for comfort?

We call our nightstand the Heirloom: originally made in the 1940s by my grandfather (the town cabinetmaker and policeman) for my aunt when she went to college, it somehow ended up with my grandmother in the nursing home; it was my inheritance when she died. It's more a small set of shelves than a nightstand, but that's how we use it. On top is a revolving stack of (semi)current reading. The lower two shelves are the permanent bedside collection.

In the spirit of seasonal of self-examination, here's what's there now. Middle shelf is poetry:

• The Oxford Book of Travel Verse: poets' impressions of the world, ordered by region; has Hughes's and Plath's poems on a bullfight they watched during their honeymoon


• The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse: a fascinating, thematically arranged anthology of Tudor through Restoration poetry, with an introduction bettered only by that of ...


• The Penguin Book of Victorian Verse: has "Goblin Market" and "The City of Dreadful Night" and "Amours de Voyage"; which would be enough even without the introduction


• The Oxford Book of English Verse (Gardner edition): one of the two best single-volume general poetry anthologies I've met; and no, the other is not the Ricks edition, but ...


• The Penguin Book of English Verse: a volume that continues to delight, after a few years' grazing; arranged not by birth date of poet, but publication date of poem


• The Portable Poets of the English Language: a five-volume anthology with introductions by Auden, a co-editor; if the gatekeeper to the desert island lets you count this as a single book, take it instead -- you won't be sorry


• Complete Shakespeare: a compact edition used as a textbook by Betty Jobleigh in 1924

The bottom shelf is general reading:

• Montaigne's Essays: always good for a dollop of wise and witty


• Plutarch's Lives: though, actually, neither of us has touched this in several years; it's probably due for rotation out


• The Book of a Thousand Nights and One Night (Burton, 3 volumes): naughty line-art -- 'nuff said.


• Nicomedian Ethics: one day I'll read it straight through and, like, have finished a book of Aristotle


• The Practical Cogitator: an anthology of moral/ethical philosophy; also due for cycling out


• Bible (NRSV)


• Song of Songs: a facing-page translation by two Jewish poets


• Faith and Practice (Pacific Yearly Meeting): Quakers don't go in for doctrine, but they do like to document what they do and say


• Tao Te Ching (Le Guin): yes, Ursula Le Guin translated Lao Tzu, with help from a pony -- graceful English, dubious accuracy

So what do you keep by the bedside?

---L.

Comments

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Very little. The bedroom is small and the tables are less than a square foot each. Each table holds one small lamp (one needing rewiring, just now). One table (triangular, to wedge into the angle at the window) also gets a phone in a charging stand on its lower shelf, usually a pen or pencil, eyeglasses, a tiny clock. The other table (square) gets a little tissue box, a small schwag notebook with a pen held in an elastic loop, eyeglass case, and a bottle of water or a drinking glass from time to time (these get knocked too easily off the narrow triangular table).

Sometimes a few books and TLS's collect on the floor, but that's discouraged, because they get dusty.

The bookshelf in the bedroom, other side of the room, is Limbo; it holds new acquisitions until read. These can loiter for a long time. I noticed Angelica's Grotto in there the other day, The Charterhouse of Parma, Exercises in Style, a monograph on the stairs in the Goethehaus in Weimar, Beecham Stories, a lot of Sun and Moon Classics, about half a shelf of poetry, some biographies, and miscellaneous others. But the bookshelf isn't necessarily bedtime reading. It's merely another storage area.

[larryhammer]

Ah, the TBR bookcase. Our TBR pile is a couple shelves in one of the bedroom bookcases (there are two, SF/F paperbacks and trade/hardcover), but we're about to reorganize and move TBR out to the bookcase in the hall, which is already stacked with overflow.

The top of the nightstand has a half-dozen Valdemar novels, couple poetry books, The Red Tent, and Powell's account of navigating the Grand Canyon. Glasses also go there at night. Alarm clock is on the dresser furthest from the bed, to force us to Get Up to snooze.

---L.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

The nightstand is too small for much--a lamp, the DSL unit, a flashlight in case of a killer quake during the night, and kid clutter (I regularly tote it to their areas but it accretes again).

On the other side of the bed, however, is a bookcase, which has all my ship books in it, plus chapbooks, most of which are probably collectors' items, not that my progeny will ever recognize them as such.

[larryhammer]

Where does parent clutter end up, then -- dressers?

---L.

[sfmarty.livejournal.com]

I would have to go upstairs to the bedroom to check, but there are about a hundred pocketbooks. I built a set of shelving for behind the bed some years ago. Right now I am reading (upstairs) a Donald Westlake, just finished a few mysteries and some SF& F.

I admire your selections.

[larryhammer]

Okay, bedframe bookcase = envy. Just so you know.

---L.

[sfmarty.livejournal.com]

I built it. No need for envy. When I was putting it up I found the right angle in the house. About four feet from the floor. As I built it I had a plane so I could shave bits here and there. It really wasn't hard. I will email you with a particular or two.

[larryhammer]

Space for bedframe bookcase = envy.

[maryosmanski.livejournal.com]

My "nightstand" is an old "stepped" living room end table, a real cheap late-1960's thing from my first apartment.

On the top step are the two alarm clocks (one electric, one battery), the control for the electric blanket, a small bottle of hand lotion, a half-filled plastic water cup, and whichever Deverry novel I was reading before falling asleep last night. Also two ponytail scrunchies I keep forgetting to take back to the bathroom.

The bottom "step" has two areas: one is under the top "step," and that is where I have a big, ugly 50's style ceramic ashtray (it must have a diameter of about 10 inches) where I dump all my usual worn-to-school jewelry when I take it off. There's another small bottle of hand lotion, a deodorant "stick," and some price tags and receipts for recent clothing purchases lying on the open part of this bottom step. Also, the two Deverry books which precede the one I'm currently reading (because I keep forgetting to put them back in one of bookcases in the living room).

Under the table I keep non-fiction books and magazines that I just never seem to get around to. They're all remaindered or library sale books that seemed like a great bargain or "someday I might want to read about this subject." I know how they got there. They were out of tabletops or piled in stacks on the floor in more public areas of the house, and at some point, we must have been expecting company and did a frantic clearing away. I stashed the books under the nightstand, and now I just keep cleaning and dusting around them, but never doing anything with them.

Steve has the second end table over on his side of the bed. On his end table there are several SCA weapons-type items (knives and daggers), a box with some jewelry, old newspaper clippings, and little souvenir-type oddities in it... and at night, his watch and glasses are put on his "nightstand." He keeps no books or magazines in the bedroom at all. His computer room/study, on the other hand, looks like a library exploded in it.

For the books below:

[larryhammer]

Sounds like culling time.

---L.

ObIrrelevant

[larryhammer]

I must say, if anyone did an MLS/Cthulhu crossover fic, The Books Below would be the perfect title.

---L.

[gfjames.livejournal.com]

Boy would you be disappointed when checking out my nightstand. Even though I own some 12,000 books and counting (at the rate of about 10 per week), none of them rest at the side of my bed waiting to be read--or to be used as sleep inducers. I can't read in bead, so I do all my reading sitting in a comfy chair in our library/den/all-purpose room or in my office.

[larryhammer]

Disappointed? Given the obvious number of books, I would probably conclude you simply don't read in bed.

---L.

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

I don't actually have a nightstand. What ends up at the end of the bed, where there's a bit of space made, is usually not books...those are pretty much at hand in the bookshelves around the place; the library books are racked in the old computer desk that now serves as the stand for the TV and home theater system. If anything, the current reading matter will end up by the bed, but that wil be a single book at a time.

[larryhammer]

A single book at a time is something I'll never manage.

---L.

[sfmarty.livejournal.com]

I have one book being read in my bedroom. Two in the car,one in my coat pocket, one by the comphy chair, one in the bathroom. And a few more that I stopped in the middle of and now can't find.

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

That book will never be the only thing I'm reading. Just that only one at a time makes it to the bedside.

[larryhammer]

Ah -- makes sense. Sort of. Do the others have another hangout, or just whereever?

---L.

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

Desk, edge of bookshelves, one that tends to live in my jacket pocket (right now that the Lindskold/Zelzny ord Demon), e-books on the Brick. Newspapers, magazines, and the like tend to wind up in my laundry basket for some reason. Library books cycle back to their spot.

I'm turning slightly organized in my old age.

[cardigirl.livejournal.com]

I'm another one who'd disapoint you -- my TBR pile is usually in the living room next to the sofa (I do a LOT of my reading there). My nightstand is also small, and usually has a single book there at any given time. Currently, it's Child Goddess by Louise Marley.

You'd also assume I'm a lightweight when it comes to books in general. Many, many of my books are still in boxes because I don't have anywhere to put them. Working at a library, I am also more of a borrower than a buyer, and I'm reaching the point in my life where less is more: books are subject to draconian weeding, just as everything else is. (I still keep a lot.)

[larryhammer]

"Disappoint" is probably not the word. I know about having one's life in boxes.

---L.

[bdenz.livejournal.com]

We both have nightstands and we have a headboard with a top shelf. All are full. David also has a stepping stool with books on top that are as tall as I am. In those piles of to-be-read stuff, we have: Irish class notes [D], fantasy, sci-fi, historical novels, myth and stories from 5 different cultures [Ireland, Iceland, Finland, Maori, and NW Indian] [me], the complete Farside Comics, texts on SGML and XML [me] and bone carving [D], and books on writing [me]. I think that's all. I'm currently reading Pandora's Star and Guided Imagery [alternating]. D's reading Kushiel's Avatar for coffee in the morning, reading on the ferry, and putting-to-sleep at night.

You'd love our house [and we yours]. We have 3 bookshelves in the living room packed to overflowing, 2 in each of our studies and a bunch more books in storage that there's no room for. Until the holidays, books were piled on every flat surface. We've been striving to make that stop. Instead of head-high, they're only waist high now.

Shelves closest to the door have garden, auto repair, foreign language [about 1/2 the books we actually have on language and learning] and history of all kinds. Next batch has travel [picture books of places we've been; National Geographic maps; guidebooks], grad school books I chose to keep [broadcasting and organizational communication mostly]; final batch in the living room has cookbooks, self-improvement books, religions of the world, and all my yearbooks. In my study, there's mostly computer manuals, sci-fi and fantasy I can't part with, and multiple copies of the books my stories are in. And the rest of the language manuals. In D's study is poetry, music theory and notation, more travel, class notes of both, home improvement, dance, archery, and a smattering of medieval history.

But we're culling. I think I rival Mary for near-bed eclecticism.

[larryhammer]

We're up to 10 full-size bookselves and a handful of half-heighters, all stuffed. We're hopeless. Though to be fair, one of those bookcases has our Sometimes Roommate's books. But still.

---L.

[jacardie.livejournal.com]

Lord only knows what's on the bottom shelf. I just shoved a bunch of papers and stuff down there awhile back when we rearranged furniture. And I have yet to find a real home for it.

On the top is a lamp, a box of Kleenex, a pen (with purple ink for writing purple prose *g*), a coaster for the Diet Coke, the tv remote with TV Guide, Chapstick, all the meds I take at bedtime, a notebook in case I wake up in the middle of the night with a brilliant idea for a story, the book I'm currently reading (whatever that may be at any given time), and yet more books that are patiently waiting for bookshelves.

[larryhammer]

Notebook for the middle of the night never worked for me. Though there is a notebook on my dresser, but it's my reading journal.

The tops of our dressers are not to be looked at. Even aside from the pocket clutter, and change cup, and jewelry cases, and spare musical instruments, and clothes awaiting minor repairs, and ...

---L.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I live (and thus sleep) alone, and my bedroom has three bookcases in it, all filled to the brim and over with my TBR pile. (Yes, I read slowly.) I must have over a thousand books in there.

[larryhammer]

We've space for only the two in our bedroom, alas. But they do (almost) hold all our SF/F (that isn't YA).

---L.

[junoxxiv.livejournal.com]

My nightstand is a bookshelf with the bottom shelf busted out, as well as the space immediately bedside and under the bed.
There are empty cups and dishes, earrings that I have forgotten to remove before coming to bed and stashed there, stuffed animals, pencils, drafts of my writing, my mandolin and music, but mostly it holds my current interest reading, with current being anytme in the last three years. At some point I should clear off everything I am done with, but that day is not today.
- A mixed bag of Analog, Asimov's and SF&F some from the 70's, some from the 80's and then my current subscriptions which started two years ago
- Vogue, Elle, Jane, and Smithsonian Magazines
- A Field Guide to Western Birds
- Steel Beach, John Varley
- Days of Grass, Tanith Lee (unread)
- The Renegades of Pern, Anne McCaffrey (unread)
- Artemis Fowl (unread)
- The Romeo Error, Lyall Watson (unfinished)
- Nightfall, Asimov and Silverberg (unread)
- The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick
- The Roman Way, Edith Hamilton
- The Greek New Testament (unfinished)
- Philosophic Classics: From Plato to Nietzche (unfinished)
- Come to the Feast, Richard Fragomeni
- The Golden Globe, John Varley (unfinished)
- Roman Society, Boren
- Essential Writings in Spirituality and Theology, Charles Williams (unfinished)
- Writing for Children and Teenagers, Wyndham
- Fiction Writer's Workshop, Novakovich
- Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, Highsmith
- Alfons Mucha, Renate Ulmer
- Victorian and Edwardian Fashion
- The Difference Engine (unread), Gibson and Sterling
- Finding Your Writer's Voice
- Children of the Mind, Orson Scott Card (unread)
- How to Write Science Fiction and Fanatasy, Orson Scott Card
- The Gate to Women's Country, Sherri Tepper (unread)
- Bird By Bird, Anne Lamott
- Beginnings, Middles, and Ends, Nancy Kress
- The Artist's Way, Julia Camron
- Good Planting, Rosemary Verey
- Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban
- Art Fundamentals
- Inside the Music, Dave Stewart (unfinished)
- Sabriel, Garth Nix (current reading)
- Salvage Style for Outdoor Living
- Roses
- All About Roses
- A Course in Miracles (unfinished)
- How to Write Mysteries (unread)
- The Aguero Sisters, Cristina Garcia
- The Oil Painters Ultimate Flower and Portrait Companion
- How to Paint Like the Old Masters
- John Singer Sargent, Claire Gibson
- Your Mythic Journey, Same Keen and Anne Valley-Fox
- Drawing and Sketching
- Drawing: Space, Form, Expression
- Women in Greece and Rome, Lefkowitz and Fant
- A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert
- Ingathering, Zenna Henderson (unread)
- Write From Life
- Reel Future
- Screenplay, Syd Field
- Crafty Screenwriting
- The Silmarillion (unfinished)
- Expedition, Barlowe
- After Man: A Zoology of the Future, Dougal Dixon
- The Thief Lord
- The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love
- How to Draw Heads and Portraits
- The Stars My Destination (unread)
- Color
- Love and Transformation: An Ovid Reader
- Writing Past Dark
- The Seeing Stone (unread)
- Singing (unfinished)

[larryhammer]

Let me know how you like Sabriel (I adore it, but it's not without flaws). And who did the translations for Love and Transformations?

---L.

[junoxxiv.livejournal.com]

So far I like Sabriel, I am about 100 pages into it. I'm afaid I am reading it a bit to analytically as I am desperate to try and fix my story which has a lot of similarities but isn't fantasy. I really like the world and the mechanisms for magic.
The Ovid translation is Richard Lafleur's. I was feeling lazy about digging through the chaos by my bed to find authors when they weren't readily apparent on whatever part of the cover was showing, so thanks for making me go back and upend the stack of crap to see for sure who did the translation! :P

[larryhammer]

And is Lafleur's any good?

---L.

[junoxxiv.livejournal.com]

duh-hoh!
When I wrote translation, silly me, I meant to write it's Latin with notes by Lafleur. And no, my translation is not very good! :) But his notes are great.

[jankenstein.livejournal.com]

Barlowe's "Expedition" is one of my all-time favorite books.

[junoxxiv.livejournal.com]

It is amazing.
I also love "After Man." I got them as a set (my original disappeared over the years) as a surprise gift Christmas 2002. I am a lucky girl.

[jankenstein.livejournal.com]

I have that one, too.

You might be interested in Karl Koefoed's "Galactic Geographic" as well. You should be able to find the details on amazon.com

[junoxxiv.livejournal.com]

ha ha!
Synchronicity strikes again.
I belong to this get-your-life-in-order-keep-your-house-tidy webgroup, FLYlady. (I would strongly recommend her to anyone tired of being buried in dishes and laundry) Anyway, one of her reminders this morning:

"FLY Spot Alert!

When is the last time, you cleared out your night stand beside the
bed? Who knows what interesting things are hiding inside! Some of them
may qualify for the weirdest items decluttered..."

:)

[larryhammer]

Nah, that'd be the dressers, and the closet shelves. Them, I'm afraid to touch.

---L.