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We call our nightstand the Heirloom: originally made in the 1940s by my grandfather (the town cabinetmaker and policeman) for my aunt when she went to college, it somehow ended up with my grandmother in the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

[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.