The Books Around You

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The Books Around You

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1xenchu
aug 15, 2007, 6:39 pm

I also posted this topic on the forum Art is Life.

This question is sheer curiosity. What books do you have immediately around you where you sit at your computer?

There is a wall of bookcases next to me. I imagine a lot of you have something similar or possibly a whole room full of bookcases. I see The Great Books of the Western World, the Encyclopedia Britannica, a shelf of books on tai chi ch'uan and other martial arts, a shelf of fantasy and science fiction. Other books scattered around are Shakespeare's Lives, The Alexandria Quartet, Deathhouse Gates, Chin P'ing Mei and Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature.

The book on the table beside me, that I am reading now, is The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci.

As I said this is sheer curiosity. Besides I do like knowing what others are reading. I get tips on future reading.

2kathi
aug 15, 2007, 7:21 pm

xenchu, you have touched a guilty nerve with me! Without getting up from my computer chair, I can reach out and touch 41 books. They are in little piles to the right of me, to the left of me, and behind me. They have all arrived in my home within the past few days. Some have been cataloged and are awaiting transport to a bookcase in the hallway or the bedroom or the living room or the dining room. However, I've been feeling really lazy when I get home from work and have been procrastinating with the cataloging and shelving. Maybe this weekend.

My current novel is on my bedside table, untouched for several days, because I find it slow and not very engaging. It is Close to Home by Peter Robinson. Feel a little guilty because he is a good author and I usually enjoy his books. Hhmmm...I seem to be doing a little guilt-trip thing this evening.

Time to give the kitties their dinner.
Kathi

3tropics
aug 17, 2007, 12:52 pm

I'm writing this in our den, the walls of which are lined with bookcases, one of which is filled with "not yet read" books (e.g. The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley, Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy Maclean, The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, You Must Set Forth At Dawn by Wole Soyinka, The Adventures Of Ibn Battuta by Ross Dunn, Crow Lake by Mary Lawson, Earth Odyssey by Mark Hertsgaard, The Tender Bar by J.R.Moehringer, Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks).

Adjacent to my computer sits God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens which I began reading yesterday.

4SamSattler
aug 17, 2007, 10:39 pm

My computer is in my study, the right wall of which is completely covered by built-in bookshelves that hold about 850 books. On the desk, within reach I have reference books on Grammar, English Literature, the history of country music and two French-English dictionaries. Sadly enough, there are books stacked on the floor on two sides of the desk that are waiting to be covered and placed on shelves or for me to finish reading them so that they can be "reviewed."

Books everywhere...that gives me comfort. :-)

5Storeetllr
aug 18, 2007, 2:58 am

My bookshelf is about 4 feet from my computer and contains about 50 tomes, mostly reference, history, and art books.

On my desk, there are eight audiobooks: The Sun Also Rises, A Moveable Feast, Absalom, Absalom, Northanger Abbey, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Promise Me, and The Colossus of New York, all waiting to be downloaded onto my iPod.

On top of the printer that is on a cabinet next to the desk is Grave Peril.

In my purse on the chair next to the printer cabinet is my iPod which contains the following audiobooks: The Road, Jane Eyre, Jonathan Strange, Artemis Fowl and the Opal Deception, Find Me, Cod by Kurlansky, Dark Guardian by Feehan, and Dark Assassin by Perry.

6dwsact
okt 23, 2007, 9:10 pm

My computer faces a corner, each wall of which is lined with books. I can see my entire collection of books about the Bloomsbury group, my collection of books about the writing of biography and autobiography, my now mostly out-of-date professional books (adult education), books written by me and members of my family which range from Trout Stream Insects by Dick Pobst to George Grosz: Art and Politics in the Weimer Republic by Beth Irwin Lewis. You can guess which of these sold the most copies. The few books saved from my childhood are in view including the now valuable Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman with its moveable illustrations.

Most of my books on history are here and all of my reference books. There is a small but cherished section of books on the environment including Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. I don't read much fiction, but what few in this category that I have are on one shelf. Books on or related to my family history occupy several shelves. I recently discovered that one of these, The journal of George Fox by George Fox, published in 1801 is quite valuable. However, I won't be parting with it.

The array of books is broken in a few places by mementos, some of them favorite items of kitsch (e.g., a Betty Boop piggy bank and a Marie Antoinette action figure. Yes, press a butten and her head pops off).

7Maleva
dec 2, 2015, 3:58 pm

The books I have on my desk, at this moment, easily within my reach, are: The Portable Hawthorne, The Heart of Mid-Lothian, The Portable Faulkner, Vanity Fair, Tom Jones, Bleak House, The Oxford-American Dictionary, Roget's University Thesaurus, Follett's Modern American Usage, The Complete Poems of Wallace Stevens, The New Oxford Book of English Verse, The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, and The Oxford Book of American Verse. There is also a thin volume about artist Berthe Morisot underneath my keyboard. My desk is fairly cluttered with these books stacked about, along with miscellaneous items such as small moleskin sketchbooks, some business cards, a Jack Skellington mug of pens and pencils, a rubber zombie finger puppet, a DVD of William Gillette's silent film Sherlock Holmes, and, of course, my flat computer screen. I barely have room for my own hands.

Now that I read over this, it seems ridiculous!

8WholeHouseLibrary
dec 2, 2015, 7:03 pm

Hi. A lurker here. I qualify, but have not yet joined; been busy.

Currently, I've got the laptop in the kitchen, so I'd have to say a rarely opened cookbook is near me at the moment.

But, most of the time, I have the laptop in my office, upstairs. In that room, I've got all of the Dewey-equivalent 500, 600, 700, and 800s, plus a few select one from the 300s and 400, surrounding me, almost a thousand books. There are perhaps eighty in the bookshelves I had made to hang on the wall over my desk. These are my go-to books for reference when I'm editing.

9Maleva
Redigerat: dec 2, 2015, 9:48 pm

Sounds pretty close to Heaven, to me.

10JackieCarroll
dec 3, 2015, 12:45 am

I'm lying In bed reading on my Nook. I spent a good hour on The Stargazer's Sister, a Galley from Random House that comes out next month. Frankly, I'm finding it a little boring so I've switched to The Bees. On my night stand I have the latest arrival from Library of America. I'm ashamed to admit that I've forgotten what it is and I'm too lazy to turn on the light and find My glasses. I've put Blue Labyrinth in my bedside chair so I won't forget to grab it on my way out tomorrow. It's dangerously close to being overdue at the library. The Gilly Salt Sisters is on the windowsill beside the chair. That's all I can recall without turning on the light .

11Maleva
dec 3, 2015, 2:41 pm

Yes, JC, my latest LoA volume is upstairs (I'm in a small room in the basement), and it's a recent arrival -- Hawthorne: Collected Novels. It will go on my toppling TBR pile, which never stops growing, like an untended weed. But hey, I'm not complaining, not really. Enjoy.

12John_Vaughan
Redigerat: dec 3, 2015, 3:05 pm

The Art of Eating which I just devoured - what a wonderful book - now I must shelve it. Just re-reading Tennis Whites and Tea Cakes by Betjeman, also started two from the TBR pile Midnight Rising by Tony Horwitz and The age of Extremes are alongside me too.
Guilty as charged M'Lud (As Rumpole of the Bailey would say).

13JackieCarroll
dec 3, 2015, 3:57 pm

>11 Maleva: Mine is Mark Twain: Mississippi Writings.

Everyone has a great variety of fabulous books at hand . Happy reading.

14JaneAustenNut
dec 5, 2015, 2:06 pm

I'm in my upstairs library/bonus room with all my books & laptop. My library table has some good books close by. Table tops; Living with Books by Alan Powers, At Home with Books by Ellis; Seebohm, and Sykes ( great visual books ). I also have my current library reads on top of the table ready to be devoured. (Christmas In Mustang Creek by Linda Miller & The Last One Home by Debbie Macomber ). It feels good to be amongst books in just one cozy room.

15Maleva
dec 5, 2015, 3:21 pm

I had a copy of At Home with Books once, and I loved it. I say "once" because I'm pretty sure I donated it to my local public library a few years ago, since I can no longer find my copy but they have a nice one on their shelf. It was a great large-format photo book showing how people make room for their books, how they shelve and creatively display them in different spaces. I should get another copy for myself.

16abbottthomas
feb 3, 2016, 6:40 pm

In my tiny study I am surrounded by books. Behind me poetry, humour (Thurber, Leacock, etc. and lots of Wodehouse, fiction and a complete run of Slightly Foxed. In front of me books on Greece, on Opera, on medicine, on family history, military history and a shelf of aged Penguin books. To my left, large books, reference books, history and some odds and ends. To my right a window with a small pile of Opera programmes awaiting my comments on the productions.

17misskate
feb 5, 2016, 4:50 pm

No books in sight. I share my computer with my husband and the table is covered with paper cups, car keys, calculators and even an old paint brush (I think he uses that to clean the keyboard) there isn't even a pencil around to take notes with. Despite this we don't fight (much) and have managed to survive. The joys of retirement.

18staffordcastle
Redigerat: feb 5, 2016, 6:21 pm

My computer is on a desk in my bedroom, but right now I'm sitting on my bed with the laptop. The desk is between two bookcases, one of which is mostly computer books, and the other, larger one, contains mostly books that I might want to refer to while working on the computer. The books nearest me at the moment are the paperback fantasy novel I'm currently reading, The Book of Night with Moon, and next to the bed is a pile of recent acquisitions, the last of which is How To Be A Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Everyday Life.

19PhaedraB
feb 5, 2016, 11:29 pm

In front of me are shelves with books on divination, various field guides, a half-dozen novels, and scads of my personal notebooks.

Behind me is a few shelves of occult topics.

To the left of me is one shelf of books written by my husband and myself.

To the right of me is the hallway leading to the spare room which has maybe 1500 books, some in stacks on makeshift shelving, most in boxes. But as far as I know, they're all catalogued, except for the occasional stray or two I stumble upon.

Currently Reading is stacked next to the bed.

TBR is a triple-stacked shelf in the spare room.

Ones that I took to the vintage bookseller today but didn't get bought are in a box behind the sofa, waiting for me to update my records.

20JaneAustenNut
Redigerat: apr 5, 2016, 9:06 pm

I am currently in the book room / library; about 1300 + books. Books closest around me are: 4 books on George Washington's life, Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, Designated Daughters by Margaret Maron, What Does The Bible Say about.. The Ultimate Bible Answer Book by Brian Ridolfi, and The Upper Room devotional. Infact, I am completely surrounded by books; it is my favorite spot/place in the house. I just noticed that I wrote on this subject in December of last year and it seems I still love my little upstairs cozy library... thank God I still love books and reading.

21Meredy
apr 8, 2016, 2:47 am

I don't know how many books I have right around me here in my study because some of them are buried. I can reach about two dozen right now without moving. No, maybe more like 30 (I just moved a few papers). There are about 160-180 more within six feet. One of these days I simply must sort them out.

There are four other rooms that have a lot of books in them--actually, make that five--and there are boxes full in the attic and basement. I really have no idea how many that adds up to. My gosh, but moving is going to be tough.

22Caco_Velho
jan 12, 2017, 12:54 pm

I have a bit over a thousand books. My library/computer room is the spare bedroom (which means I cannot accommodate company conveniently.) There is a row of bookshelves on two walls and a free-standing bookcase in what should be the clothes closet.

The shelves are fairly well organized into subject sections: poetry; misc. travel; mixture of science & soc., social criticism; English lit & history; Mahayana Buddhism; Theravada Buddhism; Japanese history and fiction - and a bit of Chinese; gay fiction, history & soc.; ancient Egypt/Greece/Rome - early Medieval hist.; NY city history; U.S. history & culture; jazz & modern pop music; U.S. lit. - classics mainly; large section of Irish archeology, history and language. Quite a few large format art books on some lower shelves. Closet bookshelf: genealogy reference on Canada and foreign dictionaries. (Ah yes, the kitchen has a bookcase: history and fiction of Brazil, Canada, some German, France, a bit more U.S.)

What's nearby that I'm reading:Kluge, Gary Marcus (about the brain), Diary of an Ant, Tómas MacSíoman (trans. of Irish lang. short stories - eerie, freaky stuff, The Meursault Investigation, Kamel Daoud (a kind of "the other story" of Camus The Stranger), an art book of various copies of The Book of the Dead.