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| Hearsay: |
Where do you go first when you get into someone’s house for the first time? Well, if they don’t know I’m there, I go for the porn and jewelery stashes. But if I’m visiting, I head straight to the bookshelves to see what they’re made of.
What interests me about other people’s books is the nature of their collection. A personal library is an X-ray of the owner’s soul. It offers keys to a particular temperament, an intellectual disposition, a way of being in the world. Even how the books are arranged on the shelves deserves notice, even reflection. There is probably no such thing as complete chaos in such arrangements.
In my house it’s several units of poetry and fiction, a few more of social and cultural theory and shelves and shelves of gender theory. Oh, and I also keep a few Where’s Waldo in there for when my family visits.
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September 22nd, 2006 at 4:04 pm
I also have several units of books according to subject.
But, I read in bed and so distribute these units according to access.
So, on my night stand I might have 3 or 4 books and then the bookshelves on the first, second
and third floors will have larger units. The farther away the bookshelf the less current or
topical the book might be. It is sort of a panoptican arrangement with my bed at the center.
Of course this sounds all too tidy and the ordering does break down. For example, books are
in the bathroom. Also, since there is no heat on the third floor I rarely visit those books
in the winter. Finally, I have most of the poetry on the first floor where I might have guests-
in order to impress them with my erudition (inevitably I am humbled when no one takes notice).
September 23rd, 2006 at 9:46 am
I’ve got a buncha books, but I’m missing the essentials in some cases,
so showing any thought towards organizing my library only highlights
my inadequacies. I prefer the casual snooper to see that I’ve got three
editions of Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist, two Joyce biographies, a
thick, scholarly guide to understanding his style, a copy of Finnegan
with a uncracked spine… and to assume that Ulysses is somewhere around
the corner. I offer the booze before they go a’hunting. :-)
September 24th, 2006 at 1:50 am
I guess I must be a bit odd then. I have mostly fiction and poetry, everything ranging from Willa Cather and Milan Kundera to Khaled Hosseini. As a child, I always arranged by size. it doesn’t make too much sense, but it keeps thingsneat in my head. I guess that works out fine for me. Oh yes and the psychology text books from years of study (as well as my own journals). You really can tell the stuff of a person by what they read…..